


What do we do now?

by oceansgate



Category: Ocean's 8 (2018)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Lou's POV, Origin Story, Slow Burn, Sweet sweet slow burn, i guess, soft lou, there will be tammy at some point when I get there, this is my first fic be kind
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-07
Updated: 2018-10-25
Packaged: 2019-07-08 02:40:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 25
Words: 31,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15921172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oceansgate/pseuds/oceansgate
Summary: “Get your dirty hands off my girlfriend.”The command slices through the air. Its meaning hasn’t registered in Lou’s brain by the time the speaker has closed the gap between them, arm around Lou’s waist and mouth on hers.Lou and Debbie from the beginning to the end





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was orginally going to be about Debbie flirting with everyone to get what she wants but then I went deep and went back and somehow ended up here? The goal is to end up there in the future but really who knows where these two will take me.

Another step backwards and suddenly her skin meets concrete, the cold seeping through her palms. The wall pushes against her and she tries to take comfort from its solid form. Drawing its strength from behind her, she forces herself to look up into the eyes of the three girls advancing towards her.

A single syllable is hurled from an ugly mouth.

Lou had thought it would be different here. She had thought you could be anything in New York. Not that she’d wanted to come - when her mom whispered to her that a friend of a friend could get them out, set them up in America, fear had frozen her stomach. Australia was her home. But that night when she huddled under her covers trying not to listen to the sound of her father slamming her mother against the kitchen wall she had known this was not her home. Home was somewhere you felt safe.

Still, everything inside her felt raw and sharp. There was a cutting need for her external appearance to match the sandpaper and shards of glass that seemed permanently embedded in her stomach. Suddenly the soft, feathery hair coupled with the willowy grace of her new adolescent body had seemed so false she couldn’t stand it. So Lou had taken her father’s clippers from the cupboard in the bathroom and slowly, deliberately, watched as the pale hair dripped onto the floor and the chiselled head in the mirror began to resemble a figure she could identify with. And in that moment, Lou had felt powerful.

She didn’t feel powerful when her mom came home and grabbed her wrist with white hot fury. Screamed and cried and hurled abuse at her. Looked her dead in the eye and spat that word at her for the first time.

_You look like a fucking dyke. I don’t want a dyke for a daughter, do you hear me?_

Lou doesn’t feel powerful now, as that same word punctures her gut and the girls take another step forward and suddenly their hands are on her and the wall is closer than before and it’s not just words in her gut forcing her to double over. And then another voice joins the shouts and instantly the hands retract and the world widens again, revealing a brunette striding towards her.

“Get your dirty hands off my girlfriend _.”_

The command slices through the air. Its meaning hasn’t registered in Lou’s brain by the time the speaker has closed the gap between them, arm around Lou’s waist and mouth on hers. Urgent but gentle. Something sparks low down in Lou and she shivers. The girl breaks away and turns to the gang now staring, eyes and mouths wide.

“If you’ve got a problem with dykes, you gotta bring that up with me too,” the girl says nonchalantly, arm still looped snugly around Lou’s waist. She feels the fingers squeeze a little and she shivers again, acutely aware of the shock it sends through her body. The group are stammering apologies as the girl quickly releases her waist and captures her hand instead, fingers slotting easily together. Pulling Lou forward, she glances back over her shoulder. “Now if you’ll excuse us, my girlfriend and I have places to be”.

They walk across the schoolyard, hands still clasped tightly together. Lou blinks away tears as adrenalin and confusion (and something else, something electric she can’t identify) coarse through her veins. Once they are out of sight, the girl stops and pulls Lou around to face her.

“I’m sorry; I hope I wasn’t too out of line back there – kissing you I mean. But those girls definitely _were_ out of line and it was the quickest way I could think to shut them up.”

Lou just stares into the girl’s eyes, blinking. Her brain still hasn’t caught up with the events of the past five minutes. She wonders if the girl can hear the thumping in her chest.

“So since we’ve already gotten intimately acquainted-” the girl breaks off to wink at her and for a second Lou can’t quite catch her breath “-I suppose we should become formally acquainted. I’m Debbie.” The girl pauses and holds out her hand.

 “Debbie Ocean.”

Finally Lou’s brain kicks into gear and she manages to take the girl’s hand and reply “Lou Miller, pleasure to meet you.”

And somehow Lou manages to wink back at her, their hands still clasped together in mock handshake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll probably post the next chapter pretty soon... thanks for reading :)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I nearly posted the first two chapers as one but decided to split it, so I didn't want to leave it too long before posting this part. Hope you like it!

“Hey baby…”

A silky voice breathes into Lou’s ear and she whips around, nearly spilling the contents of her lunch tray. She finds herself staring into swirling eyes and a sparkling smirk – it’s the girl who rescued her yesterday. Debbie.

“I hope your first day got better after I left you,” Debbie says, the smirk softening to smile.

“Yeah, it wasn’t so bad thanks,” Lou replied. _But nothing could get better than your mouth on mine and your fingers pressing into my waist_. The thought appears from nowhere into the front of Lou’s mind, and she has to swallow suddenly to stop the words spilling from her lips into the air. She has no idea where it came from and she shoves it down again, blinking rapidly.

Debbie leads the way to an empty table in the corner of the cafeteria and Lou follows, not sure if she’s supposed to but not wanting to do anything else. As Debbie sits down she looks up at Lou and says casually “I’m not gay by the way, but like, I don’t care if you are. I’m cool with it I mean.”

Lou sits down too, her mind racing but no words forming. Luckily Debbie doesn’t seem to be waiting for an answer; she seems content with letting the statement hang comfortably between them. They eat their lunch in companiable silence.

Lou slips easily into a friendship with Debbie. Her sharp Australian humour slots neatly with Debbie’s silky wit and the two of them quickly strike up an easy banter. There’s a natural rhythm between them and Lou quickly decides that it’s very possible Debbie will become the best friend she’s ever had.

As she stalks through the hallways with her, Lou notices Debbie seems to command an odd sort of respect, other students clearing the way, nodding at her with a strange look in their eyes that Lou can’t place (she wonders if it is fear, but Debbie’s not scary, she’s lovely). Lou begins to think she’s possibly accidentally made friends with the popular high school prom queen but at the same time, Debbie doesn’t seem to have any other friends – at least, none she’s introduced Lou to. And being seen with Debbie seems to grant Lou the same respect, but at the same time it seems no one else will speak to her either. Lou wonders if it’s because word of the events on her first day travelled fast.

Then, it’s Friday lunch time at the end of her first week, and Lou sits down at the table in the corner of the cafeteria (the table that always seems to be empty until Debbie occupies it) and waits for Debbie to join her.

“Hi, I’m Marsha. I hope you’ve had a good first week here.” The sunny voice jolts Lou from her thoughts and she looks up to see a smiling blonde blinking expectantly at her. Lou instantly realises that no, Debbie is not the school’s popular princess – this girl is. She doesn’t know how she knows, she can just sense it.

“Anyway,” the girl continues, not waiting for a response from Lou, “I wanted to come over to warn you because you’re new here and I’ve noticed you’ve been hanging out with Debbie Ocean a lot. I know you’re not from around here so you probably don’t know, but Debbie is a _criminal_.” The girl’s pink pout closes around the word criminal in a mock whisper, her eyes wide with scandal. Lou just stares at her.

“I mean, she’s from a criminal family. The Ocean’s, they’re notorious around here. Not the sort of people you want to be getting involved with is all I’m saying.”

Still Lou says nothing. But her mind begins to race, things slotting into place. The looks, the fear, the way Debbie seems to own this school yet has no friends. The way those three girls on the first day backed off as soon as Debbie arrived, didn’t dare throw the same words at her they’d hurled at Lou. Out of the corner of her eye Lou notices Debbie making her way towards the table, a slight scowl forming on her face.

“Anyway, you’re welcome to come and sit over there with us,” Marsha motions to a table across the cafeteria where a gaggle of girls are lounging, all glittering smiles and shining eyes. Then she notices Debbie striding towards them, storm clouds brewing. “So are you coming or what?”

“No thanks,” Lou looks her straight in the eyes, “I’m fine here.”

“Okay well, suit yourself” Marsha huffs, “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” She turns and slinks back over to the glittering girls seconds before Debbie slams her tray down onto the table.

“What did Marsha Greenfeld want?” Lou can tell she’s angry. For a second she considers lying but then throws caution to the wind.

“She came to inform me that you are a notorious criminal and I should be hanging out with her instead of you.” Lou tries to maintain an offhand tone. She hopes Debbie can’t hear the slight shake in her voice. Looking up she sees Debbie collapse in on herself a little.

“Oh.” The voice is small. Vulnerable. Not the voice Lou has come to associate with Debbie.

“Don’t worry though, I told her I’m from Australia so criminal runs in my blood. Said we’ve got big plans.” Debbie’s eyes widen. “Did you really?”

Lou laughs. “No but I should have. Would’ve wiped that smug smile off her face.” She reaches out and covers Debbie’s hand with hers. “I’m not a criminal by the way, but like, I don’t care if you are. I’m cool with it I mean.” Squeezing her hand, Lou winks at Debbie. “Not a criminal _yet_ , anyway.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still sort of setting the scene, but I promise the juicy stuff is coming soon...
> 
> Thanks for reading, let me know what you think!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all your comments on the previous chapters, I'm glad you are enjoying the work. Here's the next chapter for you :)

Lou wakes to sunlight streaming across her face. She shifts cautiously, turning to rest her eyes on the girl sleeping next to her. Lou loves watching Debbie sleep, but she always feels odd – guilty – like she’s doing something she shouldn’t be. During the night Debbie has shifted and one of her arms has draped itself across Lou’s body. Its weight is comforting and Lou feels safe here, nestled in Debbie’s bed sheets. She feels something else too, something she doesn’t want to admit, even to herself.

Her eyes flit up to the ceiling and she sighs softly.

The Ocean’s might be a criminal family, but in their hearts they are good people. So when they discovered Lou sobbing on their doorstep, an incoherent babble about her mom and her new boyfriend and some crazy road trip across America streaming from her mouth, Debbie’s parents stepped in. They talked to Lou’s mom, persuaded her that by all means she could up and leave with her man, but why take Lou with her? Wouldn’t it be better for everyone if Lou came to stay with them, so as not to disrupt her schooling? (And not to disrupt the many schemes and cons Lou and Debbie were juggling at their high school, although that point was somehow not mentioned to Lou’s mom.)

So Lou was installed in one of the spare bedrooms in the beautiful Ocean brownstone, although it turned out she rarely slept there. She and Debbie were up until the early hours most nights, fine tuning cons and spilling deep thoughts, so more often than not Lou would fall asleep in Debbie’s bed, the two of them a tangled mess of limbs and hair and dreams.

Lou extracts herself from under Debbie’s arm and plods into bathroom. A moment passes and then she hears Debbie shift and softly call out her name.

“Hey Lou..?”

Lou sticks her head back into the room, toothbrush in mouth. “What?”

“Have you thought at all about prom?”

The senior prom (their senior prom) is three weeks away, and so far they haven’t discussed it. In the past they’d run various elaborate cons involving the senior prom, but this year Lou had sort of assumed they were allowing their own year a night off.

“Oh, I kind of thought we weren’t going to bother conning the prom this year – much as we hate all our peers we could at least give them that,” Lou says through a mouthful of toothpaste.

“I’m sorry, I don’t speak Ukrainian.” Lou rolls her eyes and spits. “I said, I thought we weren’t going to bother conning the prom this year.”

“No I mean, have you thought about going?”

This catches Lou’s attention.  She steps back into the room. Debbie is standing there in her oversized sleep shirt and Lou’s eyes can’t help but flit down over her bare legs. She hopes Debbie didn’t notice. “Going? Well, no one’s asked me.” Lou chuckles throatily. “And I doubt they’re going to either”.

Debbie takes a step forward. “Well _I’m_ asking you. You’re my best friend Lou, and I wouldn’t want to go to prom with anyone else.”  Lou blinks, and then reaches out to catch Debbie’s hand. Bringing it up softly towards her mouth, she winks as her lips brush against Debbie’s skin.

“It would be my honour, Miss Ocean.”  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a short one I know, but don't worry, the next one will make up for it...
> 
> Let me know your thoughts xx


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Buckle up everybody...

Debbie and Lou make an eye-catching couple. And, truth be told, a large number of the student body seem to be under the impression they _are_ a couple -  possibly fuelled by the gossip that circled after Lou’s first day, or by the fact that (as far as anyone is aware) neither girl has dated anyone else during their time at high school. Either way, even on a regular day as they stroll through the hallways, the vision of the pair is spectacular. They are steely ice and dripping honey, they are power, elegance and grace, they are the electric current that seems to crackle and jump between them. But today, today they are truly something special.

As they step into the prom, Lou feels hundreds of eyes looking them up and down, and she knows it’s not just because girls aren’t supposed to come to the prom with another girl.

Although Lou had grown out the shaven head she arrived in America with, she kept the shock of feathery blonde hair short and choppy, uneven bangs brushing heavily against her eyelashes. Although no one dared whisper _dyke_ at her anymore, she still leaned heavily into the aesthetic. Drowning herself in jewellery – necklaces nestled provocatively low on her chest and hands heavy with an eclectic mix of rings – Lou strode around school in chunky boots and tight, ripped leather.  For the prom however, she had really outdone herself.

The moment Debbie asked her, Lou’s mind flitted to a fitted three piece suit she’d seen in a goodwill store on the lower east side. It was deep purple, the waistcoat intricately embroidered with dancing golden thread. That weekend she’d raced back to the store, heart thumping, praying it was still there.

Now, standing at the entrance to the prom, Lou knows she looks the best she has ever looked in her life. The suit fits her perfectly, and she has forgone a shirt, opting instead to adorn her chest in only jewellery, drawing the eye down the point where the buttons of the waistcoat meet. She towers above the crowd in glittering golden heels, arm snaked around Debbie’s waist. In stark contrast, Debbie is the picture of elegance, her silky brown locks cascading down over a form fitting dress of black lace and not much else. The light and the dark; together they look incredible.

“Lou, everyone’s staring at us,” Debbie whispers into her ear, her breath hot on Lou’s skin.

“I know darling,” Lou replies, “It’s because we look fucking fabulous.”

And with that, she takes Debbie’s hand and pulls her onto the dance floor.

 

Sweaty and exhausted, but still high on an evening of dancing and giggling and enjoying each other’s company, Debbie and Lou stumble home, shoes no longer on their feet. They walk along, still hand in hand.

“I’m so glad I met you,” Lou says softly. “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“Back at you, Miss Miller.”

Lou pauses and pulls Debbie round to face her.

“I still remember the day we met,” she says. “So do I.” Debbie replies, her voice husky.

“You came out of nowhere and suddenly your lips were on mine. You were my first kiss, you know.” Debbie laughs at that, a low chuckle. “You weren’t mine. Jonny Bateman, spin the bottle, 7th grade. You were my second, though.” Lou closes her eyes and inhales deeply. Through the exhale she looks deep into Debbie’s eyes and says “And now you can be _my_ second,”

She leans in and their lips meet and for a moment it’s everything Lou has dreamt of. The feeling of Debbie’s soft lips against hers sends shivers down her neck and as she runs her tongue gently along Debbie’s bottom lip, sparks jolt somewhere deep beneath her lower abdomen. But then Debbie pulls away.

“Lou…”  Debbie’s eyes are filling with tears.

“Lou, I’m not gay.”

Lou hears the words and for a second she’s drowning. She’s still holding Debbie’s hand, and instead of letting go, she grips it harder in an attempt to stay afloat. Her mouth opens but no sound comes out.

“Lou,” Debbie says again, “I’m so sorry.” Her voice is thick with tears.

Suddenly Lou’s legs can no longer support her and she crumples to the ground. Something in her chest splinters and a gaping hole rips itself open, sucking away her breath. _She kissed Debbie Ocean. Debbie Ocean is not gay. Debbie Ocean is her best friend. She loves Debbie Ocean. Debbie Ocean is not gay._ The thoughts hurl themselves at her, ricocheting around inside her skull. The pain is too much.

Debbie crouches down next to her, dress riding up her thighs. “Lou, look at me.” She cups Lou’s chin in her hand, tears slipping into it. “Lou Miller, I love you with all my heart but I’m just not gay.” Lou lets out a soft whimper. It’s all the sound she can manage. “You’re my best friend, my partner in crime, my right hand man. I promise we can still do everything together. Just not this.”

She lifts Lou to her feet. “Okay?” It’s the furthest thing from okay, but Lou summons all her strength and manages to look at her and nod, tears still streaming down her face. Debbie wraps an arm around her shoulder and somehow they manage the rest of the walk home, Lou leaning heavily on Debbie for support.

As they quietly enter the house, Danny slips out into the hallway. He takes one look at Lou (still silently sobbing) and explodes.

“I’ll kill ‘em, I swear! No one fucks with Lou Miller and gets away with it. No one fucks with an Ocean. I swear I’ll-”

“Shh Danny, please!” Debbie cuts him off as Lou stiffens next to her, sobs choking her now.

She pushes past him and practically carries Lou up the stairs to her bedroom. Lou sits down on the bed and finally lifts her head to look at Debbie.

“Deb, what do we do now?”

“Now? We go to sleep. And everything will look clearer in the morning.” Gently, Debbie slips Lou’s jacket off her shoulders, then unbuttons the waistcoat, sliding that off too. Lou shivers. As Debbie unzips her own dress and lets it fall to the floor, Lou slowly slips out of her pants but stays perched on the edge of Debbie’s bed. Debbie clambers over her, now dressed only in her sleep shirt, and pulls a still topless Lou down onto the bed next to her.

“Debbie…” Lou mutters, tears still streaming.

“Shhh, it’s okay.” Debbie’s arms wrap around Lou, one hand gently rubbing her shoulders, the other in her hair. “Everything’s going to be okay.”  Lou presses closer into her, knowing she wants more, knowing she can’t have it but desperately hoping what they have already can be enough. They fall asleep clinging to one another, both wondering if their tight embrace will be enough to prevent the other from drifting away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope everybody is still enjoying this after that... I promise it will get better for Lou... eventually...
> 
> (did I mention this is a slowwwww burn?)
> 
> Thank you for all your kind comments so far, keep letting me know what you think :)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so I had already written this chapter when I posted the previous one but then I decided I didn't like it so I re wrote it... and then re wrote it again... I don't know, I'm still not really happy with it but I'm posting it anyway. I really struggled to write the dialogue for this - everything I wrote seemed like something these two would never say. Ughh well, I hope you guys still like it.

Lou shifts as the solid warmth suddenly melts into cold air. She reaches, trying to grab it back. A voice drifts into her, hazy and far away.

“Shh Lou, it’s okay baby, I’ll be back…”

The soothing voice lulls her for a moment and she begins to drift off again, comforted by the familiar sound. But then a flash of last night appears and suddenly her eyes snap open and she jolts into the world. She almost chokes but quickly stills herself and squeezes her eyes shut again. Holds her breath and prays Debbie didn’t notice the moment of consciousness. She can’t face Debbie yet. She’s not sure if she will ever be able to face Debbie again.

So she lets the comforting warmth slip away from her body and doesn’t move until she hears the gentle hiss of the shower drip into the room. Then she’s out of bed, grabbing at a t shirt lying on the floor and shoving it over her head before practically running up the stairs, away from Debbie’s room, away from Debbie’s bed, away from Debbie. In any other world, kissing the person you love then waking up topless in their bed would be a cause for celebration. But Lou doesn’t need to stop and wonder how it’s possible that this exact scenario has left her feeling like someone’s ripped out her stomach and shoved it down her throat. She doesn’t need to wonder because she remembers all too well how it happened and the memory is pounding behind her eyes.

But Lou has decided. She won’t cry. She won’t beg. She will quietly pack her bags and find somewhere else to stay. Debbie doesn’t deserve this and she won’t burden her with it – fuck, she should have left last night even. What was she thinking letting Debbie undress her and cradle her and whisper soothing words into her ear? What was she thinking? _Fuck._

“Lou..?”

 Lou jumps and nearly knocks over the bag she’s been stuffing with clothes. She doesn’t turn around.

“Lou what are you doing?”

Debbie’s voice is strained and as it cracks over the words it takes everything in Lou not to turn and run into her arms, to hold her and take away the pain. But she has made up her mind. She will pack up her feelings, shove them down into the suitcase alongside her belongings, and then remove herself from Debbie’ life.  

And then Debbie’s hand is on her shoulder and she’s pushing Lou round to look her straight in the eyes and just that simple touch is enough to destroy all Lou’s resolve.

“Lou what the fuck are you doing?” Her voice doesn’t crack this time, it’s sharp and cold and it forces Lou to swallow, hard. She searches for the right answer.

“Debbie…”

“You’d better not be trying to fucking leave Lou.”  
  
“Debbie I…”  
  
But Debbie cuts her off by enveloping her into a squeezing embrace, knocking the air out of her. Lou stiffens, but then her natural reflexes take over and against her will her body softens into Debbie’s. Somehow though, against everything her body is telling her, Lou manages to extract herself, pushing Debbie off and turning away.

“Debbie please don’t touch me right now.” She doesn’t mean it to come out so harshly. So cold. It rips her in half to watch Debbie flinch at her words.

“Lou..?” 

Lou doesn’t know what to say because she doesn’t understand. She doesn’t understand any of this. She doesn’t understand how she can want to put her hands everywhere on Debbie, how she can want to taste every inch of her, be close to her, be inside her… but also want Debbie nowhere near her. She doesn’t understand how Debbie can want to touch her, hold her, sleep entwined with her, skin on skin…and yet not want what Lou wants. She doesn’t understand how feelings this powerful can be so one-sided.

Lou Miller had thought she understood Debbie Ocean but she was wrong, she was so wrong.    

“I just, I don’t understand how…” Lou trails off. Debbie waits. Lou tries again, voice small. “I don’t understand how to be us anymore. I’ve fucked everything up, haven’t I?” She swallows and goes on before Debbie can say anything. “I love how we are – how we were. I’ve never had a friend like you before. I’ve never had a friendship this intimate. And, I don’t want to lose you Deb, but I don’t understand how you can be like that with me now that you know-” Lou breaks off to swallow again, and take a deep breath, “Now that you know what I want. How I really feel when you touch me. And how I really want to touch you. Fuck, I wish it wasn’t like this, but I can’t change that about me. And I know I can’t change that about you either.”

“Oh Lou…” Lou hasn’t looked at Debbie, she can’t. She said her whole garbled speech looking into her lap, picking at the skin around her nails. But she doesn’t need to look at Debbie to know that she is crying.

“Debbie I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry for being so fucking selfish.”

“No Lou, _I’m sorry._ I’m sorry for not wanting what you want. I’m sorry if the way I’ve acted has given you misleading signals. I’m so fucking sorry that I’m causing you all this pain. And if anyone’s being selfish here it’s me because I need you Lou, and not just as a partner in crime – I need you as a best friend.”

Lou doesn’t know if she can do this. She doesn’t know how to do this. Over the years she might have chiselled out this steely persona for herself, all ice and sharp edges, but with Debbie there’s always been a softness. Now though, she thinks the only way out of her feelings is to lock them away behind layers of cold hard metal, the same way she did with all the shit from her childhood, memories of her dad holding her mom by the throat… but Lou can’t shut Debbie away in that box. She doesn’t think she has the strength.

“Debbie I don’t know if I can do this.”

“Fuck, I don’t know if I can do this either Lou, but we have to. Because we’re just too damn good together to throw it all away. And because you might feel this way about me now but you won’t feel like this forever. I guarantee there will be other girls, other women in the future and I want to be there to meet them, as your best friend. Somehow we just need to ride this out until you’re over me.”

Debbie reaches out to catch Lou’s hand but Lou jerks away. The feeling of Debbie’s skin against hers is still too painful, still burns too much.

Debbie takes a deep breath. “If you need me to not touch you for a while, that’s fine.”

Lou doesn’t know what she needs, she only know what she wants but can’t have.

“Please Lou…”  
  
Lou exhales, long and slow, squeezing her eyes tightly shut.

“Please,” she hears Debbie say again, more softly this time.

“Okay,” she hears herself answer. “Okay, I’ll try. I don’t know what I’m doing or how it will end but I’ll try.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you for reading. I just wanted to say I really love reading all your comments and reactions to each chapter and I really appreciate you taking the time to write such lovely things. Keep em coming!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's just a little bit of fun in between all the Angst™, hope you like it...
> 
> (Quick note though: I just want to make sure it's obvious that every couple of chapters or so, the story skips forward a few years through their timeline. There should be an indication somewhere in each chapter whether it is happening directly after the previous one or if some time has passed. Let me know if this isn't clear!)

“Two shots of tequila please!”

The glasses clink down in front of them and Lou groans. “C’mon Debbie, you know I hate tequila.”

“And you know I love it – go on, drink up.” Lou looks up into Debbie’s glittering eyes and rolls hers.

“Fine, but I cannot be held responsible for my actions once I’ve had tequila.”

“Oh baby, when are we ever held responsible for our actions..?” Debbie says with a wink, sliding off her bar stool. “Now come on, we’ve got work to do.”

Together they slip into the crowd and Lou’s eyes begin their familiar work, sifting through the sweaty jumble of gyrating bodies until they land on a likely looking suspect.

“How about him over there,” Lou breathes into Debbie’s ear, nudging her in the direction of a tall man in a dark shirt, sipping a whiskey at the bar. “Eh,” Debbie looks him up and down “He’s cute but look at the shoes…” Lou catches sight of the tattered trainers resting on the foot of the bar stool and winces. “Ouch you’re right, okay never mind ummm…” She continues to scan the crowd.

“Ooh two o’clock” Debbie says, jabbing Lou in the ribs. Lou looks up and sees a red head staring straight at them; gorgeous, leggy and dripping in jewels. “Hmm, potential…” she says quietly, looking the woman dead in the eye and giving a slow, sultry wink. The woman blushes. “Okay, she’s definitely on the table, anything else?”

“Oh hey what about black dress in the corner? She’s practically eye-fucking you already.” Lou looks around to see a beautiful brunette smouldering against the wall in an extremely tight, extremely short, black lace dress. “I mean she’s hot but…”

“But what, Lou?”

“But she doesn’t look that rich – no jewels, no watch, and I doubt she’s got much money tucked away in that tiny dress.”

Debbie rolls her eyes. “You know Lou, occasionally it’s okay to just fuck someone because you want to fuck them. Look, I’ve spotted a dude over there checking me out three times already meanwhile I’ve been checking out his watch - it’s a nice one and I bet the inside of his wallet will be nice too. I’ve got us covered for tonight – go have fun with sexy eyes over there.”

Lou pouts and widens her eyes. “But baby, stealing shit is my kink. I want to fuck someone because I want to fuck them _and then_ make off with all their money. The two things go together.”

Debbie smirks. “You really are a criminal at heart” she says fondly.

“Yeah well it’s your bad influence Ocean. You took me in as an innocent homeless teen then turned me into a ruthless con artist.”

“Some of my finest work baby.”

And with that Debbie turns on her heel and slinks across the club, over to a good looking man in an even better looking suit. Lou watches as Debbie pouts and giggles and dips her chest forward just the right amount _,_ one hand somehow finding itself placed oh so casually on the inside of his upper leg. Lou smiles and shakes her head. She still finds it mesmerising to watch Debbie at work – that woman is a master at what she does.

It’s been nearly three years since they left the Ocean brownstone and moved into a matchbox apartment in east Harlem, forgoing the college experience for what Debbie likes to refer to as _the school of life, sweetheart_.  And certainly, Lou has learnt loads. How to wind a mark around her little finger, for example, have them completely at her mercy with just a few words and simple touches (that, she learnt from Debbie, watching in awe as the girl she knew transformed into a seductive woman who could flirt anything out of anyone). Or how to fuck a woman senseless, pleasuring her until she’s a trembling mess at Lou’s feet, then slipping out of the door pockets weighed down with expensive souvenirs (she doesn’t know where she learnt that from, but once she was alone with a woman the talent just seemed to drip from her fingers). And how to not give a damn. Yes, Lou had certainly learnt that. Feelings were far away these days and it’s just the way she likes it.   

“Now that your friend is over there chatting up that handsome man, is it safe for me to come over and chat _you_ up?” The silky whisper oozes into her ear and Lou leaps out of her thoughts, momentarily caught off guard. She turns to find herself skin to skin with the red head she’d winked at earlier.

“I’m not sure it’s ever safe to chat me up…” Lou purrs back, her eyes sweeping appreciatively over the vision in front of her (gaze lingering on the pool of diamonds dripping into her cleavage).

“It’s a risk I’m willing to take. And seeing as your friend has left you all alone, you’re probably in desperate need of some company.” 

Lou licks her lips slowly, gaze flicking from the woman’s eyes down to her lips and then back up again. “Oh sweetheart you have no idea…” She leans in and their lips meet. Lou wraps one arm around the woman’s waist and draws her closer, moaning softly. Hungrily, the woman responds to Lou’s touch and deepens the kiss, Lou’s tongue in her mouth now. Lou’s hand traces down her neck, across her collar bone, fingers grazing from skin to jewels to skin. She feels the woman shiver against her touch and she breaks away for a second and sighs dramatically.

“If my friend comes home with that man I just know I’m going to get no sleep tonight – she’s so damn loud…” Lou says slowly, her breathe spilling into the woman’s neck.

“Mmm then in that case you absolutely must stay the night with me” the woman replies, without missing a beat. Lou smirks subtly. It’s just too easy.

“Oh well, if you insist…”Lou takes her hand and begins to lead her towards the exit. As they pass Debbie, Lou turns her head almost imperceptibly, winking slowly. Although Debbie is now pressed close against her mark, mouth on his, she still manages to return the gesture, the words unspoken between them.

_See you in the morning, partner._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you for all your comments, they really inspire me to keep writing. I hope you liked this lighter chapter, and don't worry, the angst will be making a return soon, along with new (but familiar) face...


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After the last fun interlude, we're back on the drama train (although the angst is mild in this one). Don't worry though, it's building up to something spectacular... (I hope lol)

Lou stretches and rubs her eyes. Rolling out of bed she plods into the kitchen in desperate need of coffee, wondering if Debbie is up yet. Probably she is already out, weaving threads through the city, laying the groundwork for their next scheme. Lou doesn’t understand how Debbie can be so on it all the time – leaping out of bed after a heavy night working through the clubs, eager to iron out the intricate details of whatever extravagant con she is piecing together. Lou smiles softly to herself. Godammit that woman is something else.

She’s halfway through making a pot of coffee before Lou looks up and notices the girl perched on the sofa. She nearly jumps out of her skin. The girl looks up at her and blushes.

“Oh uhh hi, you must be Lou… Debbie said she didn’t think you’d be up for a couple of hours.”

Lou narrows her eyes. What is this? “I’m sorry, who are you? And where is Debbie?” The girl blushes an even deeper shade of red and her eyes flit nervously around the room, seemingly trying to look anywhere but at Lou. Lou is suddenly conscious that she’s standing in the kitchen in just her Calvin Klein underwear (a present from Debbi e – matching set, stolen). _Shit._ Well, she wasn’t expecting company.

The door clicks open and relief floods through her as Debbie strides into the apartment. It was unnerving her, being alone in her underwear with this stranger who doesn’t look a day over nineteen. Debbie glances at Lou, eyes washing her up and down. She clears her throat and says “Morning Lou, glad to see you’ve made our guest at home.”

Lou doesn’t reply, merely folds her arms across her chest and leans back into the counter. Debbie raises one eyebrow at her.

“Lou this is Tammy, she’s an old family friend, just moved to the city.”

“ _Old_ family friend, huh?” Lou knows she’s being petty but she can’t help herself. Something about the sight of this blushing blonde delicately arranged on her sofa has scratched at her. It’s itched a place in Lou that it shouldn’t have, but now that it has, the place is becoming swollen and fiery. The girl doesn’t seem to have noticed.

“Yes,” the girl replies, “Our dads go way back. They used to work together.”

Lou snorts. “Is that so? And why exactly are you here?” Debbie glares at her, and Lou can tell she’s pissed at Lou’s attitude towards her new friend. “She’s here because I invited her over. Tammy’s just started at NYU, and this city can be a little overwhelming at first. Thought we could maybe show her around later.” The girl (Tammy) blushes again and Lou rolls her eyes. This little mouse won’t last two minutes in New York, especially not two minutes in her and Deb’s New York.

“Sure, whatever. I’m going to take a shower.” Lou’s eyes glance down to the bag of warm pastries she’s just noticed dangling off Debbie’s wrist. “Save me some breakfast?”.

Lou lets the hot cloud of steam envelop her. She steps into the stream of water and squeezes her eyes tightly shut. The droplets pound into her skin and she wishes their deafening thunder could drown out the swirling storm in her head. Her cheeks are wet and although the shower water washes over her, as Lou licks her lips she can taste salt. _Fuck._ The discovery of a quivering teenager in her apartment and she is coming undone.

Lou had thought she had dealt with this.

She had squashed those feelings and she’d piled others on top and she’d danced and laughed and flirted and fucked with so many women and she was fine. And she’d watched Debbie leave with man after man and she was fine. She had made peace with herself and with Debbie and they were fine. So why did she suddenly feel sixteen again; small and stupid and vulnerable? What was it about this girl that had sent Lou spiralling down into the depths of herself, dragging old feelings up with her as she climbed back out?

Lou sighs and turns off the water. She’s being pathetic and she knows it. Debbie has no interest in women and the girl is clearly here because of some family obligation to show her the city. It’s strange admittedly – they rarely do stuff with other people – but Lou resolves to let her snarky side wash down the drain and merely enjoy a low stakes day out with Debbie (and their new friend).

 

 

Lou’s getting ready for bed when Debbie slips into her room, silk kimono flowing behind her. She flops down on Lou’s bed. Lou says nothing.

“Lou, what was that all about this morning?” She comes right out with it and Lou feigns innocence.

“All what honey?”

“All the bared teeth and underwear power stances in the kitchen with Tammy?”

“Hey, the underwear was not my fault – you didn’t warn me there was going to be a child in the apartment, and anyway, at least I gave her a show…”

Debbie sighs. “Come on Lou, don’t play games right now. I’m serious, why did you give her such a frosty welcome?”

Lou’s heart is pounding. _Because I’m still so in love with you that it hurt to see you buying breakfast for another woman._ The thought throws itself at her and she is so unprepared for it that it almost flies out into the air. Almost. She swallows quickly and tries again. _Because the thought that you might prefer that innocent little thing over me crawled down my spine, unzipped my chest and left my heart dripping onto the floor._ Lou swallows again. That would definitely not go over any better.

Lou doesn’t know where these thoughts are coming from. She’s gotten over Debbie Ocean (spent five years getting over Debbie Ocean) and now she’s perfectly content to live as her best friend, partner in crime, right hand man. Perfectly content.

She realises she still hasn’t answered Debbie’s question. Instead of speaking, she slips into her bed and reaches out to take Debbie’s hand. Their fingers slot together, easily, like always.

“Debbie I’m sorry.” Gazing into Debbie’s eyes, Lou blinks softly. “I’m sorry for being rude - I guess I was just caught off guard. It was kind of a surprise walking into the kitchen to see that feeble mouse perched on the sofa waiting for you.” She resists the urge to add a quip about her not being Deb’s usual type.

Debbie smirks. “Feeble mouse? Lou I think you might be underestimating little Tim Tam.”

Lou feels the flash of anger rising again, feels herself squeeze Debbie’s hand, hears herself answer in an even tone “Underestimate? How so?”

“Oh Tammy isn’t as sweet and innocent as she may seem. She’s been helping her old man run jobs since she was twelve. She’s connected to a lot of people Lou, and she knows how these games are played.” Lou can see a familiar fire beginning to burn behind Debbie’s eyes. “Danny tipped me off that she’d just moved to the city – figured maybe we could use a fence. And I figured maybe he’s right.”

Lou snorts. “What?” Debbie asks indignantly.

“Nothing. It’s just that I should have known it’s about the job. It’s always about the job with you Deb,” Lou says through a smirk. Debbie cocks her head, her own sly smile creeping across her face. “Got a problem with that?”

Lou looks over at Debbie lying next to her and it suddenly occurs to her that it’s been a long time since they slept in the same bed. All those teenage nights of mixed up dreams seem so far away now. “Nope,” she says contentedly. “Not got a problem with it at all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew, thanks for reading! I hope you're all looking forward to more Tammy in the future. Comment and let me know your thoughts, it's always appreciated :)


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M SORRY

Lou huffs and rolls over for what seems like the hundredth time. The air is too cold but every time she wraps herself in the covers the world suddenly becomes too hot. Everything is uncomfortable and wrong and she wants to rip her eyes out of her skull. She huffs again and thumps the pillow. She hasn’t had a sleepless night like this in a while and she tries to think what could have burrowed under her skin that day to lay in wait, ready to poke at her all through the night. She hums and flits through the day’s memories.

Really she should be feeling great, ecstatic even. Debbie’s latest heist had (miraculously) gone off without a hitch, and it was the most ambitious stunt they’d pulled off yet. Despite Lou’s early misgivings, the introduction of Tammy to their little team had opened them up to a whole new level of criminal activity. Although, something about the girl did still make her feel a little on edge. She just seemed so… _delicate._ And young. And it definitely didn’t help that Debbie was being very…well what? What was Debbie being?

_Flirty_

That’s the word that presents itself in Lou’s mind when she thinks about Debbie’s behaviour towards Tammy but she quickly flicks it away and searches for another word. She guesses Debbie’s just being very _Debbie._ Using her silky charms and melting eyes to persuade Tammy to do exactly what she wants. (And sometimes a carefully placed touch too. Hand on hip, shoulder, waist, their bodies tantalisingly close, lips inches apart as Debbie breathes the words of encouragement into her mouth…)

Lou squeezes her eyes tightly shut. No, it’s just Debbie being Debbie. It’s how she acts with everyone when she wants something. And she’s very good at it.

Not good enough though, it seems. Because, despite her assistance in several schemes over the past few months, when Debbie had laid out her plan for their next big one that night over Chinese, Tammy had flat out refused to be a part of it.

“It’s too big Debbie, too risky. I’m done.”

Debbie had rolled her eyes and smirked softly and snuck in closer.

“C’mon Tim Tam, you can’t say you’re not having fun with us.” But Tammy would not budge. “I didn’t come to New York City to have fun, Debbie. I came to get my college degree so I could move away from a life of crime.”

Debbie had feigned hurt, her eyes wide and glistening. Lou had merely watched the scene unfold.

“Why would you ever want to move away from a life of crime?”

“Because Debbie,” Tammy had replied, with only a slight quake in her voice, “Have you ever considered that some people might want to live the honest life? The simple life? Maybe I don’t want to always be one step ahead of handcuffs and a prison cell.”

“Oh Tammy how dare you - you know I’m always at least two steps ahead.”

The debate had continued, Debbie using all her charms to wrap around Tammy, but she’d seemed pretty resolute in her decision. They were still at it though, when Lou had got bored and sloped off to bed, exhaustion after the adrenalin of the job catching up with her. Not that, it turned out, she’d been able to sleep at all.

Lou sighs and rolls over again. That whole charade had been hours ago now. She wonders what the resolution had been. Finally deeming lying in bed tossing and turning a waste of time, Lou throws off the covers and heads to the kitchen to make a pot of tea. Sounds drift into her ears as she softly opens her door. She frowns. Surely Debbie and Tammy can’t still be up?

Lou creeps down the hallway, but as she passes Debbie’s door, muffled murmurs reach through the wood and wrap around her like vines, halting her progress towards the kitchen.

The noises drip into her, freezing her blood and stealing the air from her lungs. Lou can’t move, she can’t see, she can’t breathe, but somehow (despite how much she wishes she couldn’t) she can still hear. Her skin feels like it’s melting off her, burning as it drips onto the floor. Somehow she’s still standing but she doesn’t know how, because it seems as though the whole world is crashing down around her, rubble pooling at her feet. And yet through it all there is only the deafening silence and the painful flow of noise coming from Debbie’s room.

Lou’s fucked enough women to know exactly what it sounds like. It sounds exactly like this.

She knows she should move, tear herself away from the torture and continue to the tea waiting in the kitchen. But she can’t. The sound of Debbie doing everything Lou’s ever wanted is intoxicating. It’s killing her but she can’t do anything but listen.

A high whimper shoots through the door and straight into Lou’s chest. Her legs begin to buckle beneath her and she hears Debbie voice rip through her.

“Please Tammy…” Lou’s on the floor “Come for me baby…” her head against the hard wood “Come for me now…” everything shatters.

The sound of Tammy’s pleasure ends her and she doesn’t know if she will ever be able to move from this place; a broken wreck flung against the floor outside Debbie’s room. Her final resting place.     

Time passes, seconds, minutes maybe, Lou doesn’t know. Time doesn’t seem like a concept she can understand anymore. Then somehow, miraculously, Lou manages to re-form herself back into a living, breathing human and stagger down the hallway. Nothing would be more humiliating than being discovered a quivering mess against Debbie’s door. Back in her room, she swallows down the bile rising from her stomach and attempts to quell the need to gorge open her body, reach inside and fling the contents across the room.  Without really being conscious of what she’s doing, Lou is slipping on a tank and a worn pair of running shorts, lacing her feet into battered sneakers. Before she understands what is happening, she’s out of the apartment, sprinting down the street.

Lou isn’t really a runner. She doesn’t _go for a run._ But occasionally, when she’s particularly upset or stressed or anxious, she feels the overwhelming need for speed. For her body to be tearing through the world as fast as possible, wind battering her face and heart pounding against her ribs. She doesn’t really like running, but so far it’s the only thing she’s found that in any way deals with the feeling that sometimes overwhelms her, the feeling that the inside of her should really be on the outside.

Right now, Lou feels like the inside of her body should be in outer space.

So she pounds through the streets of Manhattan, not paying attention where she’s going, not caring. She lets the tears stream freely down her face as she gasps for air. The pain is still crushing her when she slows to a stop, finding herself outside her and Debbie’s favourite bar. The only bar they go to purely to drink and not to work. Before she knows what’s happening she’s inside, tipping burning vodka down her throat, slamming the glasses onto the table, ordering drink after drink after drink. If the barman seems confused by her appearance (alone, in running gear as opposed to with Debbie, dressed to the nines) he either doesn’t comment or Lou is too far down into her black hole to notice. After a while the alcohol streaming through her system begins to numb the pain and the edges of the world start to blur. Still she keeps going, unable to do anything but flood her bloodstream with alcohol, desperately trying to drown the demons clawing away at her insides.

She must have succeeded because suddenly all the light is too bright and she doesn’t understand anything, until she realises it’s day time again and she’s being bundled into a cab. A voice floats past from somewhere far away.

“Don’t worry, I called her girlfriend, she’s waiting for you at their apartment.”

_SHE’S NOT MY GIRLFRIEND_

The scream rips through her but Lou doesn’t think she actually managed to make any noise. The real world seems very distant. She opens her mouth to try again, to tell the cab driver to take her anywhere but to Debbie, but her throat feels like sandpaper and everything is lightning bolts and shards of glass and all she can do is curl up on the backseat and mash her hands over her eyes.

So she lets the driver deliver her to the front door of her apartment and into Debbie’s waiting arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ummmm I hope you liked it? Probably not the DebxTam you were hoping for...
> 
> Please comment your thoughts


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you don't all hate me after the last chapter... and I'm not sure it's going to get better for a little while...
> 
> poor Lou

“Please Lou, talk to me baby. What’s happened? I don’t understand…”

Lou is lying on their couch, head in Debbie’s lap, Debbie’s fingers gently stroking her hair. _The same fingers that only hours ago were_ Lou jerks and flings her arms to her face. She doesn’t want to be here, doesn’t want to be anywhere near here but her body doesn’t seem to be working – or her mind, for that matter. She shudders involuntarily.

“What is it? What can I do to help? Lou please, say something.” Lou wants to say something, she wants to say lots of things, but her voice still doesn’t seem to be functioning. Too much alcohol, too much pain, she’s not sure which.

“Hey, I have some good news though,” Debbie says softly. “Tammy’s in. For the next job – I managed to persuade her, she said she’ll do it.”

Those words are all it takes for Lou’s body to be under her control again. She shoots up, shoving herself away from Debbie. Debbie jumps. “Lou-”

“Oh, Tammy’s _in_ is she? Well _there’s_ a surprise.” Lou hears her own voice from far away; cruel and cold. “Your new partner. Your new fucking partner.” The words spit out of her.”In all senses.”

“Lou I don’t understa-”

Lou turns to look her dead in the eye.

“I heard you two last night. I heard you fucking.”

Debbie turns white, mouth open, no sound coming out. Lou is slurring her words but she knows the poison in them is clear. Her voice rises up the octave for a second.

“ _I’M NOT GAY LOU. I’M SO SORRY I’M JUST NOT GAY._ What the fuck Debbie? All these years, all these years you’ve told me we couldn’t be together because you’re not into women but hey you seemed pretty into Tammy last night” Lou feels her body sway, room spinning slightly, her eyes rolling up into her head for a fraction of a second.

“ _Oh Tammy, come for me, come for me baby_.” Her voice is a breathy imitation of the bullet that ruptured her last night.

 “Turns out you are into woman, you’re just not into me. Do you know how much that hurts? DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH THAT FUCKING HURTS?”  Her words are slurring into sobs now but she keeps going.

“Not just that you’re not into me, maybe that alone I could deal with, but that you lied to me. That you let me believe you loved me _as a best friend._ BEST FRIENDS DON’T FUCKING LIE TO EACH OTHER DEBBIE. Christ, I let myself be so vulnerable in front of you. I placed my heart in my hands and held it out to you and you pushed it away because _YOU’RE_. _NOT. GAY_. but now you’re out here fucking other women, fucking Tammy for goddamn sake, and you didn’t even think to talk to me about it?” Lou isn’t sure her words are coherent through her tears anymore, but she wipes angrily at her face and looks up at Debbie. “Do I really mean that little to you?”

“No Lou, you have to listen to me-”

“No Debbie, _you_ have to listen to _me_ ,” Lou snarls. She had thought she was done but she isn’t. No, she’s only just opened the flood gates. “What does she have that I don’t? What is it Debbie? Is it because she’s younger than me? Prettier than me? Hell, is it because she’s weaker than me? Do I intimidate you Debbie? Is that what it is? You don’t want someone if you can’t dominate them, fuck them into submission?” The venom is pouring out of her now. “Because she may have those things over me, but you know what we do both have? We both have fucking vaginas Debbie and you’re oh so happy to pleasure hers but what? Mine _repulses_ you?” The words choke her but she needs to hurl them out, to purge them from her body.

“All these years Debbie. All these fucking years…”

Debbie grabs her wrists, hard. Debbie’s touch can still silence her and she hates it. Hates herself for it.

“Lou, listen to what I’m saying, please. I’m not gay, I’m not into women-”

“BULLSHIT”

“LOU SHUT UP FOR ONE GODDAMN SECOND.” They’re screaming at each other. They never scream at each other, it’s not who they are.

“Lou, please, you have to believe me. We need Tammy, we need her for this job and she was ready to walk away. Until now, just flirting has been enough, but this… this needed more. I’m not in love with her, I’m not _into_ her, I just… I mean, it was meant to just be a kiss but then things escalated. We got carried away.”

“You make me sick.” Lou’s voice is low. “It was just a kiss…things escalated… do you really expect me to believe that? I heard how you sounded with her.” She can feel a wave of nausea riding over her and she’s not sure if it’s the alcohol or if it’s the sound of Debbie coming undone alongside Tammy, pounding on repeat against her skull.

Suddenly she’s on her knees and Debbie is holding her hair and stroking her back as she hurls and hurls and hurls. The vomit pools on the carpet and Lou whimpers, tears dripping into the swirl.

“Oh Lou…”

The pity in Debbie’s voice rubs salt into the wound. For a second Lou sees herself through Debbie’s eyes: a pathetic, drunken mess. Her whole body shakes. Slowly, with all the strength she can muster, she raises her head. Her eyes lock with Debbie’s through a sticky heaviness of fringe and tears and eyelashes. She knows she shouldn’t say the words balancing on the tip of her tongue but she opens her mouth anyway, letting them tumble into the world.

“Every woman I took home, every woman I touched and marked and made whimper… I spent the entire time wishing it was you. And every time I came, every single fucking time, I wondered what it would have been like if you’d been the one to do it to me. I just want you to know that.”

Her voice is soft; she doesn’t have enough energy left for more anger. Then her body slumps and the world turns black.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so overwhelmed by everyone who is following this story, thank you all so much for your comments - I really appreciate your support!
> 
> Let me know your thoughts on this chapter... (Do you believe Debbie?)


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the next chapter - it's a bit of a shorter one, but Lou isn't ready for more yet...

Lou wakes up to a skull-splitting headache. She groans and rolls over, shuffling down under the covers to block out the light. Her mouth feels like sandpaper and cotton wool and tastes like something crawled inside it and died. She pulls the covers down an inch and notices a large glass of water on her bedside table. Lou reaches for it gratefully, pausing for only a second to wonder where it came from. As the first sip of water floods through her, it washes off a corner of her brain and pictures of the night before begin to reveal themselves.

_Shit._

The first part she remembers clearly, pain radiating through her as her mind replays the events that led her careering through the streets of Manhattan towards a messy vortex of vodka and vodka and vodka. The rest only comes to her in fragments; a cab…too many tears… shouting… Debbie…

Debbie.

Sitting up fully now, Lou looks into her lap and realises she doesn’t recognise the shirt she’s wearing. Nor does she remember how it came to be on her body. Her head drops into her hands and she moans softly. How did she let herself become such a mess? The vile taste in her mouth suggests she threw up but there’s no sign of vomit on her now. The thought of Debbie taking care of her, cleaning her up and putting her to bed, sends a violent spasm through her body. Lou silently vows to never again let herself lose control to the point where she can’t take care of herself. It’s humiliating.

After taking another long gulp of cooling water, Lou decides she needs something stronger and drags her swollen head to the kitchen in search of coffee. She doesn’t find coffee but she does find Debbie.

Debbie who looks like she’s been up for hours.

Debbie who looks like she’s been up for hours crying.

Lou bites her lip. She wonders what she said to her last night. It can’t have been pretty, Lou knows that. She was full of anger (still is); white hot, swirling, pulsing, earth shattering anger. And she was drunk. A lethal combination.  But Lou also knows that when she’s drunk, really drunk, the truth spills out of her, falling from her mouth and running out into the world to wreak havoc. It might not have been pretty, what she said last night, but it would have at least been honest. She wonders if she got honesty in return.

Debbie doesn’t say a word as Lou shuffles around the kitchen making coffee. The silence presses up against her, uncomfortable and unfamiliar, but Lou has no desire to start a conversation. She hunches over her mug and sips at the strong black liquid, refusing to look up.

The sound of Debbie softly crying drifts across the room and as it reaches Lou it squeezes her lungs and twists her heart but it also ignites the flames of anger in the pit of her stomach. She sips more coffee, hoping it will douse the fire.

“I’m so sorry.”

The words are barely more than a whisper, and for a second Lou wonders if she imagined them.

“Lou, I’m so sorry.”

They’re stronger the second time, but only slightly. Lou still doesn’t look up. To look up is to engage and to engage is too much for Lou right now. She just wants to drink her coffee and focus on not throwing up and not thinking about last night. Looking up would mean thinking about last night and it would mean hearing the thing that ruined her playing over and over and over and it would mean seeing Debbie’s tear-stained face and it is all too much.

Lou downs the rest of her coffee and slams the mug onto the worktop. The sound strikes the air and she winces. A stifled sob jumps at her from across the room. Lou stares into the bottom of her mug. She inhales slowly.

“What are you sorry _for,_ Debbie?”

The words hang in the air between them. Lou exhales. She’s broken her silence but not her downward gaze. She doesn’t want to see Debbie’s face when she answers. _If_ she answers.

“I’m…I’m sorry… for…”

The words come slowly. Disjointed. They leap from Debbie’s mouth but trip and fall across the gap between her and Lou.

Lou thinks Debbie doesn’t know. Doesn’t have a clue why she’s saying sorry. They’re just words that feel like they ought to be said in situations like this but those two words by themselves can’t heal a thing. Not if they don’t come with an answer to Lou’s question. But more words do follow.

“I’m sorry for all the pain I’ve caused you. I’m sorry that I didn’t realise how much you were still hurting over me. How much I was still hurting you. And I’m sorry I can’t stop it.”

Lou’s skin feels too heavy for her skeleton, her tongue too big in her mouth.

“Are you sorry you had sex with Tammy?”

Lou doesn’t know why she asked that question. She doesn’t know if she wants to know the answer, but she can’t take it back now. She picks at the skin around her fingers, waiting. The silence stretches itself around her. Then it snaps.

“No.”

It stings.

Lou swipes the mug across the work top, sending it crashing to the floor. The fragments explode across the room. Lou finally looks up and straight into Debbie’s eyes, then down at the shattered pieces of ceramic. She picks her way through them, out of the kitchen and back to her room, leaving Debbie sitting alone amongst the destruction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, the response to the last couple of chapters has been incredible, thank you all so much! This one was a little less drama-filled but still full of angst for our poor little Lou...
> 
> Leave me your thoughts, I love hearing from you!
> 
> Oh also: I'm @oceansgate over on tumblr so feel free to come and say hi over there too :)


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this chapter was so hard to write - I felt like I'd written Lou and Debbie into a deep hole in the last couple of chapters, and I didn't even know how to begin writing them out of it. But here's what I ended up with.

Lou dips a chunk of pancake into the maple syrup pooling at the edge of her plate, making sure the entire thing is dripping before bringing the fork to her mouth. She is grateful for something to do with her hands, with her mouth. She chews slowly, savouring the taste. There can be no expectation for her to speak when her mouth is full of pancake. Besides, she has no intention of saying the first word – after all, it wasn’t her idea to come out for breakfast. So she lets the silence be interrupted only by the chink of silverware. And she waits.

That morning hadn’t been the first time Debbie had come knocking on her door. Like each time before, Lou had stopped breathing, stayed silent and still, waited for her to give up and leave. But this time the knocking had persisted. Then the creaking of her door and the sound of footsteps on her floorboards punctured her cocoon.

“Lou,” the voice had said softly, “Come to breakfast with me? Please?”

It’s been six days since Lou scattered porcelain across the kitchen floor. Six days since Lou has spoken to Debbie. She’s mostly spent the time locked away in her room, venturing out into the rest of the apartment only when she is sure Debbie is out. One night she managed to make it to a bar, intent on seducing her way to some stolen goods, but she only made it as far as lips on the neck of some pretty young thing before a vice gripped her chest and the edges of the world started to dim and she fled, stumbling back to the apartment with her heart in her mouth.

The sound of Debbie’s voice after six days of silence had sent shock waves through Lou’s body.

“I’m worried about you Lou. Please, let me take you to breakfast.” The care and tenderness in Debbie’s voice had made Lou want to scream, to tear herself apart, to burn down the world, to wrap herself in Debbie’s arms and never let go. But instead she’d enveloped herself deeper into the swirl of sheets, scrunching her body into a tight ball amongst the twisted covers.

But then something Debbie had said tugged at Lou’s insides, pulling her up out of bed.

“You can’t stay hiding in here for the rest of our lives Lou.” It wasn’t the words she’d said that had forced Lou out of the sheets, but the words she hadn’t.

  _At some point you need to decide; forgive me or leave._

Lou doesn’t know which way this will end, not yet. But she knows Debbie is right. Knows that at some point, it does have to end. So that’s how she found herself agreeing to go for breakfast; leaving the house with Debbie for the first time in a week, sitting on the subway with the silence sitting between them, following them into the diner and wrapping around them as they read the menus, ordered, waited for their food.

 As Lou takes another forkful of pancake, she begins to wonder if this whole outing was planned as a silent trip. She looks across at Debbie and sees she hasn’t yet taken a single bite of her omelette; instead she is sitting there staring at Lou, an unreadable expression on her face. Lou swallows and pauses, fork in the air. She waits. Finally, Debbie speaks.

“Lou, I want you to know that I know I fucked up. Badly. In so many ways.”

There they are, the first offerings in this peace deal. Debbie’s voice is small and tired.

“And I don’t know if anything I say will be able to adequately explain what was going on in my head, what is going on in my head, but please let me try.”

Lou doesn’t know if she wants to hear Debbie’s explanation, but she does know that she needs to hear it if she wants to move forward in this situation. So she says nothing, just nods her head slightly. She sees Debbie take a deep breath.

“I’m so used to flirting with people, with using sex as a way to get what I want –you must understand that Lou? Going out, chatting people up, fucking them and then stealing their shit… it’s what we did. And with Tammy… in the moment it just seemed like a natural extension of that. But it was wrong, it was so wrong of me. I knew she had a crush on me, and I knew I could use that to get her to agree to whatever I wanted. But I took it too far and I hurt her and I hurt you. Because there is a big difference between what I did to her and what we did to rich assholes in bars. Tammy isn’t a mark, she’s my friend and my teammate and she didn’t deserve my lies.”

Lou can hear the sincerity in Debbie’s voice. This part of the story, she understands. Debbie sleeping with someone to get something she wants is not the part in this whole thing that’s tearing her apart. Lou puts down her fork.

“But Debbie, what I still don’t understand…” Lou pauses, not sure how to ask the question. “I don’t understand how you could want to have sex with Tammy when you’ve told me, repeatedly, that you’re not into women?” Lou doesn’t say the rest of the words swirling round her mouth but she knows they are screaming at Debbie through the silence. _How could you want to have sex with Tammy but not with me?_

Debbie shrugs slightly. Lou burns at her nonchalance. “It just felt like part of the job.”

It takes everything in Lou not to throw her plate of pancakes across the diner. Not to stand up and flip the table and smash the windows and scream and never stop screaming. She wills Debbie to answer her unspoken question because she needs the release that dagger will bring. She needs that answer to strike her heart and split her open so all the hate and anger and pain can bleed from her veins.

“How could you want have sex with Tammy but not with me?” Lou’s voice is barely there but the words still reach Debbie’s ears and the question is no longer unspoken. She holds her breath and waits for the reply.

“Oh Lou…” Debbie’s voice cracks and Lou sees the pain in her eyes. “Oh Lou can’t you see, you’ve never just been part of the job to me, you never will be part of the job. Our relationship is so much deeper, more complex, more meaningful than that. I could try, I could try to suspend all that for you, but it wouldn’t make you happy, it would ruin you more than this has because it wouldn’t be honest and you would know. Because I can’t lie to you Lou Miller. You know me too well. And I love you too much.”

Suddenly Lou is sixteen again, collapsed on the sidewalk after their senior prom. All these years haven’t made this any easier. She wants to say _I don’t give a shit about honesty, let’s try, let’s go back to the apartment right now, rip each other’s clothes off and fuck on the kitchen floor._ She wants to beg Debbie for her touch. She wants to beg Debbie for the kind of love she’s refusing to give her, beg Debbie to ruin her in an entirely different way to the way she’s ruining her right now.

But she doesn’t. She maintains composure, takes another forkful of pancake, forces herself to chew and swallow and not say anything. Because deep down, beneath the hurt and betrayal and lust, she knows it wouldn’t work. She wants Debbie, but she wants Debbie to want her. She reaches across the table to place her hand gently over Debbie’s.

“Do you think this will ever get any easier?” she says, softly. Debbie blinks at her heavily. “I don’t know Lou, but I fucking hope so.”

Silence surrounds them again, but now the edges are softer.

 “I’m so sorry.” This time Lou doesn’t ask what for. She accepts the statement as it is. “I know Debbie, I know.”

“Do you think we can be partners again?”

Lou realises she’s reached the crucial fork in the road, the one that loomed in the distance when Debbie hovered in her bedroom that morning.

_Forgive her, or leave._

Lou isn’t ready to forgive her, but she sure as hell isn’t ready to leave either. The words slip out of her mouth before her brain has reached the decision.

“Debbie I’ll always be your partner.” She swallows. “But I need some time. Away. Maybe I’ll take a trip west, see California, I don’t know… But I know I need a break from us. I promise you though, I will come back.”

Debbie exhales heavily. “Take all the time you need, partner. I’ll be here waiting for you when you’re ready.”

 

As they make their way to leave, Debbie slips a small box from her jacket pocket and hands it to Lou.

“I saw this and thought of you. I hope you like it.”

Lou glances at her, and sees a nervousness in her eyes. She opens the box, revealing a beautifully crafted dagger pendant, hanging on a simple chain. Carefully, she lifts it out of the box, eyes wide. It’s a truly magnificent piece of jewellery; oxidised sterling silver ornately twisted and embellished with jewels – diamonds, judging from the way they catch the light as Lou holds it up.

“Ohh Debbie…” Lou breathes.

Debbie slips something else from her pocket and flashes it between her fingers. “If you don’t like it, we can exchange it… I have the receipt.”

Lou’s eyes whip up at that, staring at Debbie. “Wait, you _paid_ for this? You went into a shop, picked it out and then actually went to the desk and paid for it?”

Debbie smirks. “Yep, that’s how much you mean to me baby.”

“Well fuck, why didn’t you lead with that? Skip all the other bullshit?” Lou is joking, but she sees Debbie’s eyes soften in seriousness.

“I didn’t want to buy you off Lou. I didn’t want you to think it was a pity present, a bribe. I wanted you to listen to me and make a decision on your own terms.”

“What if I’d chosen the other option? What if I’d walked away completely?” Lou said, as she fastened the chain around her neck, the pendant nestling down low on her chest.

“I’d still have given it to you. One last dagger through the heart, to remember me by.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you all enjoyed this chapter - I found it so hard to decide exactly how Lou was going to respond, and I'm still not sure I've pitched it quite right. Let me know your thoughts, and as always thank you so much for all your comments. I truly love reading them.
> 
> Quick note: The pendant Debbie gave Lou is supposed to be this one https://www.barneys.com/product/sevan-bi-c3-a7ak-c3-a7i-dagger-pendant-necklace-503972553.html which (according to google) is one of the necklaces Lou wears in the film - it's obviously a gift she treasured... ;)


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this update has taken slighly longer than usual, my brain was refusing to cooperate -something about the rhythm in parts of this is kinda off but I've been trying to fix it for ages and I've given up and I'm posting it as it is...

“Well well well, if it isn’t little Lou Miller…” The voice slinks into her ear and Lou whips around to find herself staring into a familiar pair of eyes. Ocean eyes. It’s been over 6 years (maybe seven?) but she recognises the face instantly.

“Hey, this must mean my sister’s nearby – you guys should have let me know you’d be in town, I could’ve set you up some place nice,” Danny says, with a casual nudge to Lou’s shoulder. Lou bites her lip. Resists the urge to down the drink that’s just been set down in front of her.

“Oh uh…Debbie’s not here.”  Lou sees the confusion swim into Danny’s eyes. “We’re-” Lou cuts herself off. They’re what? She was about to say _on a break_ but somehow that phrase comes with connotations not appropriate to their situation. She scans through her brain, trying to find an alternative. “We’re… working on separate stuff right now.”

Danny raises an eyebrow. “And your stuff is… in Vegas?”

 

When Lou walked out of her and Debbie’s apartment nearly eleven months ago she’d had no plan. No plan other than to put distance between herself and New York, to create a space into which to pour all the pain that was ripping her apart. She didn’t want space to forget, she just needed space breathe. So she booked herself onto the cheapest flight to California she could find, packed a bag and left. Left Debbie behind, for the first time since they met in the schoolyard all those years ago.

“I’ll be back,” she’d said. “I promise. I just need time.”

Debbie had smiled but Lou could see the anguish in her eyes, and the uncertainty, so unfamiliar. Lou could sense there was a part of Debbie that did not believe her – the part that held on a beat too long when they hugged goodbye, the part that gripped Lou’s hand slightly too tightly as they stood on the doorstep staring into each other’s eyes, neither one saying exactly what was in their mind. Lou could tell because she could feel it too. Because there was a part of her that didn’t believe it either.

Still, she’d boarded the plane, watched as her beloved city slipped away from her, fingertips pressed against the window. She had thought of Debbie somewhere down there, playing make-believe in the toy town spread out on the floor of the sky. She’d thought of Debbie the entire plane journey, the entire first day, first three days, first week.

But gradually, as weeks blurred into months, Debbie only came to her in flashes. In a dirty diner, sipping at scalding coffee in an attempt to dilute last night’s alcohol, Debbie would appear momentarily beside her, smirking and asking to compare spoils from the night before. A brunette ordering two shots of tequila (during the brief period Lou had sought honest employment) sending her spinning back in time, clutching at the edge of the bar to prevent herself from being swept through a hole in the fabric of the universe and back into some New York bar, Debbie at her side. And anytime anyone called her baby, nausea rising at the feel of the word caressing her from anyone’s lips but Debbie’s.

Starting off in some small coastal town, Lou had hopped from place to place, never staying anywhere longer than a few nights, definitely never staying anywhere long enough to get to know anyone. In the early days she’d hitched lifts, walked, rode on run-down buses, but after a couple of months she’d scraped together enough money to buy a battered old bike – the new love of her life. She’d quickly discovered nothing could compare to the feeling of tearing down long open roads, racing towards the horizon at breakneck speeds, but it never getting any closer. It filled her with an awe-inspiring sense of significant insignificance. To feel so small in this beautiful land yet race with such power towards whatever destiny she chose. On her bike, Lou rarely thought of Debbie.

It was about six months into her trip that she’d ended up in Vegas. The idea was to see the sights, play a few casinos, fuck a few rich and beautiful women, then move on. But for some reason she’d stayed. The city didn’t capture her heart like New York had, but it captured her interest at least. Lots to play with. But Lou should have known if she stuck around in Vegas long enough she would run into an Ocean. She should have been surprised it had taken this long.

 

Danny slides onto the stool next to her and the feel of a familiar presence relaxes Lou in a way she hasn’t felt since she left. Suddenly she realises how lonely she’s been these past eleven months.

“So you’re serious – Debbie’s really not here?” Danny asks, leaning forward to look into Lou’s eyes. Lou shakes her head. “Sorry to disappoint.”

Danny’s eyes glint in a way that catches at something in Lou’s chest. Those same eyes, just a different face. “Shh unexpectedly bumping into my favourite little foster sister in a casino bar in Vegas could never be a disappointment. So tell me,” he leans in closer “What are you _really_ doing here?”

Lou shuffles uncomfortably. Whatever answer she gives, she’s knows it won’t be the one he wants to hear. She can tell Danny thinks this is part of some elaborate long con constructed by her and Debbie, requiring Lou to be here in Vegas while Debbie fixes things in New York. She sighs, her heart constricting at the thought, a large part of her desperately wishing that was the case. She opens her mouth but no words come out.

“Hey, don’t worry if you can’t tell me, I know the importance of secrecy,” Danny says with a wink (a wink that tugs at something stuck behind Lou’s ribs. “Although, I am family.”

Suddenly Lou has the overwhelming desire to let honesty tumble from her lips, to tell Danny exactly why she’s here alone, without Debbie. She’s not sure if it’s the last drink, or the relief of seeing someone she knows after all this time, but she opens her mouth and lets the story fall out.

She leaves out some of the details of course, but she places enough of her heart on the bar top in front of Danny that when she looks up she can see the pity welling up in his eyes. “My sister is an idiot,” he says thickly. “She’s a fucking idiot. How could she let you go?”

Lou leaps in to defend her, unsure why. “She let me go because I needed to go.”

“That’s not what I meant. How could she not…”Danny shakes his head. “I mean, you two are perfect together. And anyone can see you love each other. Why would she not..?” He shakes his head again. “My sister is an idiot.”

The tightness in Lou’s chest constricts some more and she can feel the tears threatening to spill over and drip mascara down her cheeks. She swallows. It’s been months and months since she’s actually cried over Debbie Ocean. Suddenly Danny’s arms are around her and she melts into the familiarity of the touch, her whole body slumped against his. Sobs take over her body and she’s unable to catch her breath and Danny’s hands are holding her firmly and it seems as if he is the only thing preventing her from falling apart.

“Shhh Lou, it’ll be okay.” She presses her face into his neck. “I miss her so much Danny.” The words come out through strangled sobs muffled into the back of his shirt, but she knows Danny hears them. He squeezes her tighter. “Go to her Lou. Maybe it’s time. Go back to New York.”

She’s hysterical now, the panic rising up her throat, and Lou is powerless to its strength ripping her apart. Somehow she forces the words out through the destruction. “I can’t. I’m too scared Danny. I need her too much still.”

She doesn’t know how long they stay there, Danny holding her in his arms, holding together the pieces of Lou that his sister tore apart. It almost feels like home. Almost but not quite.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Full disclosure: I've never seen any of the other oceans movies so I'm writing Danny with no reference to anything. I hope you enjoyed his appearance anyway.
> 
> As always, please leave your comments, I love hearing from you! Thank you all so much for reading and following this story!
> 
> (Also come say hi on tumblr @oceansgate)


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a teeny tiny update for you guys...

Lou takes a bite of her waffle, chews, then pulls a face and reaches for the maple syrup. After dumping so much of it onto her plate that the result would be more accurately described as maple syrup with waffle than the other way around, she takes another bite. Chewing slowly, her mind returns to the endless circles it’s been dancing since she bumped into Danny two days ago. Thoughts of Debbie had been becoming more fleeting, more sporadic, but since seeing Danny she’s been able to think of nothing else. It’s as if Debbie climbed out of Danny’s eyes and straight through hers, waltzing round and round in her brain ever since.

Lou’s been thinking about what Danny said. About it being it being time to go back to New York. But she doesn’t know. She meant what she said – she still needs Debbie too much. But also, she needs Debbie. Danny put something into focus for Lou, something that had been floating around her peripheral vision for some time now, hazy but distracting. A dirty film hanging between her and the real world, between her and her fullest life. Danny cleaned a window for her and through it she could see the truth: without Debbie, Lou is just pretending to live.

She takes a sip of her coffee and looks up. Suddenly she’s choking, the air knocked from her lungs, scalding liquid ripping apart her windpipe. Barely seconds pass before arms are around her, hands thumping her back as she splutters up coffee and garbled sounds.

“Breathe Lou, breathe!” That voice. The voice that could make her do anything. Instantly she breathes a little easier. “Jesus Lou! If I’d realised turning up here was going to kill you off I would have thought twice. Have you finished choking now?”

Lou has finished choking. She looks up into those eyes, opens her mouth then pulls Debbie into a fierce embrace. She breathes in Debbie’s scent; intoxicating, familiar, safe. Her fingers dig into Debbie’s waist, her back, her hair, wanting to be closer and closer and closer. She needs to grip her tightly to really believe she is here. She needs to hold on and never let go.

“Lou…” Debbie breathes the word into her ear and just the sound of her name coming from Debbie’s lips feels like coming home.

“Debbie” Lou says. “Debbie, Debbie, Debbie.” She can’t stop saying it, tasting the word in her mouth like it’s the first time her tongue has wrapped around the sound.

Eventually they break apart, but Lou still grasps Debbie’s hand tightly, afraid if she lets go Debbie will disappear.

Suddenly she thinks to ask, “What are you doing here?” although honestly she doesn’t care about the answer; she doesn’t care why or how, she only cares that she _is._

Debbie’s eyes shift down. “Danny called.”

In some far off, abstract way, Lou knows she should be mad. Danny had no right to tell Debbie where she was. But in this reality, this concrete world which now contains Debbie stood inches from her, stroking her hand with her thumb, Lou has no anger. Only gratitude.  

Lou needs Debbie Ocean, needs her too much, but maybe that’s okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this one was short, but I hope it was satisfying! And don't worry, there will be another update soon.
> 
> Don't forget to comment your thoughts down below - I love hearing from you! Also come and say hi on tumblr @oceansgate
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter and the previous one could probably have been just one, but never mind, I decided to split them, so here's the second part... enjoy!

When Lou finally manages to let go of Debbie’s hand, Debbie slips into the seat opposite her, eying Lou’s waffles hungrily. Lou calls the waitress over to order a second set but before she’s even halfway through, Debbie is already digging into hers. Any other time Lou would have pushed her away playfully, accompanied by some witty remark, but right now Lou is too mesmerised by the real flesh and blood of Debbie devouring her food merely an arm’s length away that she can’t do anything but stare.

“So” Debbie says, syrup dribbling over her bottom lip, “What have you been up to since skipping town?” Lou stares at the syrup, mind distracted by the desire to cup Debbie’s face in her hand and lick her tongue gently over the sticky sweetness.

“I…” Lou stutters “I can’t believe you’re here. I can’t believe you came.”

Debbie pauses mid chew. “Baby of course I came – it’s been eleven fucking months. I was starting to worry you’d run off and joined some Californian cult and were never coming back.”

Lou can tell she’s joking, but can also hear the waver in her voice. Lou _hasn’t_ come back, after all – Debbie has come to her. “Oh honey, you know I’m not the religious type,” she manages to reply, hoping Debbie doesn’t hear the waver in hers. “I missed you so much,” she adds quietly.

“Just not enough to come back” Debbie says, even quieter.

Lou’s ribs tighten. She doesn’t know how to answer so she just lets the silence sit between them for a moment.

“I needed to wait until I didn’t miss you anymore” she says, eventually.

Debbie smiles at her sadly “You know that makes no fucking sense at all, don’t you Lou?”

Lou nods, because she knows all too well that her mind is a mess, but she also knows how impossible it is to explain that this trip was supposed to be about diluting her feelings, not intensifying them. She had thought it was beginning to work, until Danny showed up, dragging Debbie along after him.

“Anyway,” Debbie says, tone shifting as a second plate of waffles is set down on their table, “You still haven’t answered my first question – what have you been up to these past eleven months?”

So Lou tells her. She opens her mouth and the stories come pouring out, details she hadn’t remembered she could remember slipping off the tip of her tongue. It was as if all this time, she’d been storing up the memories of her trip in a box labelled “Debbie”, ready to remove the lid and explore the contents as soon as she reunited with her partner.

She tells Debbie about the beautiful sunsets she saw on the Californian coastline; the burning sky dancing with the ocean below, a sight more breathtaking than any she’d witnessed in New York. She describes the feeling of racing on her bike down endless stretches of unoccupied road, wind battering her body from the outside while adrenalin does the same from within. She sees Debbie’s eyes light up as she talks about the people she’s seen, the money she’s witnessed changing hands in casinos here in Vegas, people winning and losing sums larger than she will ever be able to comprehend in a single play.

Of course, she doesn’t tell Debbie everything. She leaves out the details of nights spent alone, sobbing into the dirty sheets of cheap motels. She doesn’t mention the guy that followed her home late one night in some small town somewhere outside of Bakersfield, cornering her in a dark alley with a leering grin on his face, but leaving with a limp and a bloody nose and no doubt a black eye in the morning. She describes a few of the most extravagant pieces she _acquired_ during her trip but she doesn’t describe the glamorous women she acquired them from, or the whimpered moans and mouths on flesh which allowed her to slip off in the morning with the treasures in her pocket.

And all the time Debbie’s eyes are on her, dark and glittering, sucking up the tales of Lou’s Californian adventure.

When Lou’s box is empty, when she’s laid out all the memories stored in it onto the table between them, Debbie sighs contentedly and glances at her watch.

“Hey look, it’s nearly 2pm –surely that’s time to move from waffles to vodka?”

Lou agrees and they make their way to a bar across the street. Once they settle in, drinks in hand, Lou ask for the answers she’s been burning to know since she laid eyes on Debbie that morning. The answers she’s not sure if she’s ready to hear, but needs to know nonetheless.

“So what have you been doing? In New York?”

Debbie’s answer is much more succinct than Lou’s.

“Oh you know, more of the same. A couple of bigger jobs here and there, through people Tammy knows, but nothing spectacular.”

“You’re still seeing Tammy then?” The words dart from between Lou’s lips before she has a second to stop them. She sees Debbie’s eyes narrow slightly. “Are we really going to have this conversation now?”

Lou shrugs slightly, says nothing.

“Yes I’m still seeing Tammy. But I’m not _seeing_ Tammy if that’s what you’re asking. I never was, I thought you understood that.”

From what Lou remembers of the situation, she never understood any of it.

Debbie sighs. “Look, you’re the one who left me partner-less in the city. Tammy’s a sweetheart and she’s smart and in the business – did you really expect me to spend this past year working completely alone?”

Lou doesn’t know what she expected. She bites her lip. Debbie scootches her stool closer to Lou and wraps an arm around her waist, pulling them together. Her breath is warm on Lou’s neck. “Listen Lou, you’re still my number one, my partner in crime, my best friend forever. And I missed you so fucking much. I’ve spent this entire time missing you and I’m tired of it.”

Lou rests her head on Debbie’s shoulder, her body aching from how much it’s missed being like this; the two of them, entwined together. She waits for Debbie’s inevitable question, answer already swimming around her mouth.

“Lou…” Debbie breathes soflty. Lou shivers. She can’t help it – that voice, delicately entering her, undoing her from the inside.

“Lou let’s stay here a while. Please? I think we could have a lot of fun in Vegas…”

It wasn’t the question Lou was expecting – mentally she’d already been packing her bags for the trip back to New York – but her answer is the same.

“Yes, absolutely yes, a hundred times yes. Oh honey, I’m so ready to be partners again.”     

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading and continuing to follow this story... I think it's going to turn out quite long - I hope you're all in it for the long haul!
> 
> As always, I love hearing from you, please comment your thoughts, questions, suggestions. Also come and say hi on tumblr @oceansgate :)


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is not what I set out to write but it's what I ended up with... enjoy

Sunlight streams through the gaps in the blinds, throwing dappled light across the room. Lou stretches lazily and rolls over, nose inches from Debbie’s. These past few weeks in Vegas have thrown Lou back into the warm haze of her sixteen year old life and if she focuses hard she can almost build a wall in her mind and convince herself she really is back there, back before she knew Debbie would never want her the way she wants Debbie, back when the prospect of what they could be still glistened in the distance; a beautiful thing still waiting to be explored.

The day Debbie had shown up, they had spent the evening in a casino, no cons, no marks, just the two of them enjoying being with each other again, no work involved. Stumbling along the strip at 3am, Lou had thought to ask where Debbie was staying.

“Haven’t found a room yet partner – first thing I did when I landed was come straight to you” Debbie had responded, arm draped over Lou’s shoulder.

So they’d fallen into Lou’s bed and in the morning Lou had awoken to find herself wrapped in Debbie’s arms, her heart pounding alongside her head. Debbie’s skin touching hers scorched holes right into her bones, and her lungs squeezed and squeezed until the pressure leaked from her eyes and dripped over her cheeks. But they never discussed Debbie finding her own room. Being close to Debbie in this way made her body feel as if it was trying to turn itself inside out, layers of muscle and tendon and flesh ripping apart and pushing outwards.

But the pain gave her pleasure because it came with the softness of Debbie’s hand on her neck and the feeling of Debbie’s breath caressing her forehead as she slept and the solidness of Debbie’s form enveloping her in safety. So Lou didn’t bring it up and Debbie didn’t either and they slipped back into the comfort of inhabiting each other’s dreams in the same way they had when the Oceans took Lou in all those years ago.

Lou yawns and is beginning to sit up when Debbie’s arm lands across her waist, flung out from within her sleep. Debbie’s fingers clutch at the skin just above Lou’s hipbones, finding the place where her shirt has ridden up. The feeling of Debbie’s touch jolts through her and strikes the back of her throat, a moan escaping from her lips. Immediately Lou’s eyes dart to the sleeping form beside her to see if the sound has entered her dreams and pulled her into wakefulness. Debbie shifts slightly and murmurs, the grip on Lou’s waist tightening, but her eyes stay shut and the rhythm of her breathing is unaltered.   

Lou shuts her eyes and breathes out slowly, focusing on the warmth spreading from the place where Debbie’s fingertips are pressing into her. It dissipates through her body, tributaries running up to her ribs, wrapping around her back, trickling down towards her stomach. It takes root deep inside her and Lou can feel something growing, a pressure building. She squeezes her eyes shut in an attempt to quell it, but that only forces the pressure to intensify. She can’t do anything about it - it’s her body’s automatic response to being touched like this. It’s her body’s automatic response to being touched like this by Debbie.

 _Christ._ Lou bites her lip. Debbie’s fingers dig deeper into her flesh and Lou looks at her lips, parted slightly and quivering as she breathes. Still deep in sleep, Debbie’s tongue gently traces over her lower lip as her grip on Lou tightens. A jolt sparks through Lou, racing from deep inside her up her body, forcing a whimper through her clamped-together lips. Her stomach coils.

Abruptly Lou leaps out of bed. Debbie shuffles again, eyes still closed, hand now reaching out to clutch at the sheets in the place where Lou’s skin was moments before. Lou heads into the bathroom, heat rising. She can feel her cheeks flushing and her body throbbing. As she strips off and jumps into the shower, Lou realises she hasn’t had sex with anyone since Debbie’s arrival. God, her body needs it, is begging for it – how else to explain the response from just a few fingers pressing against her. Against her _waist_ for fucksake.

As her body is enveloped in a cloud of steam, the downward motion of the water rushing over her guides her hand down with it, fingers finding the place sending the pulsing heat through her body. As soon as she makes contact, sound leaps from her lips and she is thankful for the pounding of the water against the walls. A shiver runs up her spine and her skin ripples, its alertness causing the hairs on the back of her neck to jump to attention. The memory of Debbie’s touch, pressing deeper and deeper into her skin, floats to the surface and a wave of pleasure rocks Lou’s body. Her mind twists the memory, guiding it down until it meets the place where Lou’s fingers are buried. Lou leans against the wall, legs weak.

It doesn’t take long. Practiced fingers push Lou over the edge and she buckles, her whole body quaking from the pleasure surging out of her centre. The water continues to rain over her as she slips down; slumping onto the floor of the shower, water pooling around her. She stays like that, curled in the swirling stream, until her legs have regained enough solidity to hold her upright again.

Lou slips out of the bathroom, wrapped tightly in a giant hotel towel, hair dripping down her back. She finds Debbie awake, sitting up in bed with the covers pulled haphazardly over her chest.

“Morning,” she says sleepily, blinking at Lou. Lou smiles, not quite able to look her in the eye.

“Hey Lou, I was thinking, now that it’s July and Tammy will be finished with NYU for the summer, how about we invite her out here for some fun?”

The question hangs casually between them, Debbie’s voice still soft with sleep. Lou sighs. She doesn’t want Tammy here, but she doesn’t want to fight with Debbie either. They’ve done enough fighting to last a lifetime.

“Fine, it could be fun I guess.”

Debbie raises her eyebrows then grins. “Wow, that was easier than I expected. And it will _definitely_ be fun. I reckon the three of us can pull off some spectacular shit here.”

Lou looks at her, collar bones peeking above the mess of sheets. Something in her pulls again. She opens her mouth.

“But Debbie?”

“Yeah?”

“Maybe we should all get separate rooms – I don’t think the three of us will be able squish into this bed and still manage to sleep…”     

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whewwwwww that was kinda different to my usual type of angst but I hope you liked it? I feel kind of bad...
> 
> Please leave your comments, I love hearing from you - especially my dedicated readers who leave comments on pretty much every chapter, I see you and I love you!!! 
> 
> Also come and say hi on tumblr @oceansgate


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another update for you all...
> 
> A quick note before it starts though: I noticed there wasn't a lot of love towards Debbie in the comments of the last chapter, and I totally understand (and I know you all love her really) but I just wanted to explain something. This work is written solely from Lou's point of view, so we're not getting to see anything going on in Debbie's head. But trust me, a lot is going on in there, and at some point it will all be revealed, but poor Debbie is struggling as much as Lou is, just with different issues - I could go back and write this whole thing from Debbie's point of view and it would be just as angst-filled...

Finally Lou manages to work the key in the lock and they stumble through the door into her room, giggles sparking between them. Limbs flail, crashing against the wall.

“Shhhh…”

Lou brings a finger to her lips, eyes wide. Suddenly the finger is trapped by another pair of lips, mouth hungrily pressing against hers. She slips her hand away, allowing a roaming tongue to briefly dart into her mouth before she presses back, her own tongue now exploring the inside of the lips moving on hers. She tastes the alcohol; tequila and vodka (and something else maybe, she’s not sure), the flavours mingling with her own alcohol-filled breath, swirling together in a cocktail of passion and tomorrow’s headaches.

Her mouth begins to trace its way down, tasting the flesh of the smooth neck arching in front of her, sinking her teeth into it, attempting to devour it, bury herself in it. Hands clutch at the back of her jacket and the air quivers with the moans that trip across it.

Lou glances up, checking. “Is this okay Tammy?” she asks, the words slipping from her tongue onto the skin it was touching seconds before. Tammy’s eyes flit down to meet hers, dark and tumultuous.

“Yes Lou, god yes. It’s everything I’ve-” but Lou cuts her off as soon as she hears the yes, biting down hard into the soft skin of her shoulder, turning the rest of her words into a whimpered gasp.  

Suddenly she’s pressing Tammy against the wall, mouth on hers again, relishing the feeling of the hands winding into her hair, fingers digging into her skull, pressing them closer and closer and closer. But it’s still not close enough so she slips a hand down, her own fingers now gripping at the inside of Tammy’s thigh, squeezing, trying to bring their bodies further in together. Closer than skin on skin, closer than mouth against mouth, she wants the barriers between them to dissolve until they melt into one indistinguishable form.

“I want you…” the breathy whisper darts from her lips into Tammy’s ear and she sees the skin at the back of Tammy’s neck spark.

“I want you too” the whisper leaps back. “I need you.”

The words wrap around Lou’s hand and drag it further up Tammy’s thigh, slipping under the fabric of her dress. Her fingers caress against smooth skin, massaging their way upwards until they make contact with soft lace. Tammy’s hips buck, a magnetic pull drawing the lace downwards to press harder against Lou’s fingers.

Lou tugs her hand away and slams her body into Tammy’s, pinning her hard against the wall, every inch of them connected. She can feel every tremor in Tammy’s body ricochet into her, the press of Tammy’s stomach, ribs, chest pushing against her with every rapid inhale.

“Patience Tam…” she growls, the words slurring together slightly “Haven’t you ever heard of delayed gratification?”

The only response she gets is a throaty moan and the thrust of Tammy’s hips increasing the pressure against her own.

Still pinning her firmly against the wall, Lou slips a thigh between Tammy’s legs but presses a hand against her hip to prevent her from grinding down onto it. Her lips hit collarbone and she moves along its firmness, drawing skin away from bone as she sucks hard, teeth occasionally grazing against pale flesh.

“Please, Lou!” The words strike the air, sending ripples through its stillness.

“Please…” It’s softer this time, but just as urgent. The sound caresses Lou, stroking down her spine, leaving a trail of goosebumps in its wake. It wraps around her thigh and pushes it harder into the space between Tammy’s legs, into the place desperately waiting for her touch. She releases her grip on Tammy’s hip and feels her sink down onto her waiting thigh. Tammy rubs against her, breathing heavily, but only for a second before Lou abruptly pulls away and walks towards the bed.

Tammy looks at her, face flushed, confusion painted across her face.

“What did I say about patience?” Lou says, smirking. “Now how about we lose the dress, eh?”

Tammy nods, eyes locked into Lou’s, hands rapidly fumbling for the zipper, carelessly tugging at the material, pulling it over her head and dropping it in a crumpled heap beside her. She takes a step forward and Lou reaches for her hand, pulling her down onto the bed.

Immediately Lou’s hand finds its way into Tammy’s underwear, while her mouth clamps firmly over one nipple. Her fingers set a rhythm and her lips match it, playing out a symphony on Tammy’s body, the notes echoing through, up her throat and out of her mouth in a crescendo of whimpered pleasure. When she feels the melody swell to its peak, Lou presses her thumb down hard while simultaneously clasping her teeth around the nipple nuzzled between them. She feels the reverberation surge through Tammy’s body, clamping hard around Lou’s fingers, eyes rolled up to the heavens, and the wave of satisfaction floods her too.

Gently, Lou eases Tammy back to earth, licking tenderly at the soft skin behind her ear. Tammy rolls over, gazing into Lou’s eyes. Her hands reach up, slowly beginning to peel off the layers of Lou’s clothes, never once breaking eye contact.

As Tammy unbuttons her pants and tugs them gently down, Lou begins to shiver. When the final article of her elaborate outfit has been ceremoniously discarded and Tammy’s mouth finds its way to the bone between her breasts, Lou suddenly feels very vulnerable. It’s as if all her armour has been stripped away, exposing the soft parts of herself, laying them out for the world to feed on. Something wraps itself around her lungs, squeezing tightly, and the shivers grow to a violent shaking. She feels Tammy pull away.

“What is it?” Tammy’s eyes stare dolefully at her, filling with tears. “What happened? Did I do something wrong?”

 _No_ Lou wants to scream. _No, you’re perfect; it’s me who’s done something wrong._ But as she opens her mouth all she can do is clamp it shut again, in an attempt to push down the nausea rising rapidly upwards.

She leaps off the bed and stumbles towards the bathroom.

“Lou?”

“I’m sorry Tammy,” she gasps, managing to force the words out through the chaos of her body, “I think it’s too much tequila. Or vodka. Or something…”

She just about makes it to the bathroom before the contents of her stomach hurls itself from her mouth. She crouches on the floor, head resting against the cool porcelain of the toilet. Tears slip from her eyes, and she scrunches them shut as the drip threatens to surge into a flood.

“I’m sorry…” Lou croaks, pushing herself up. She leans against the doorframe, room spinning slightly. “I’m such a fucking mess.”

Tammy says nothing, just stares at her, a look of concern plastered across her face, as Lou limps gingerly back into the bedroom. She reaches out to take Lou’s hand but Lou pulls it away. She looks up to see the hurt leaping from Tammy’s eyes and she sighs.

“I’m sorry Tammy,” she says again. “I think I just need to go to sleep right now.”

Tammy nods slowly. They both slip into the sheets and Lou closes her eyes, focusing on the steady inhale and exhale of her breath. She falls asleep still shivering, barely conscious of the other presence lying in the bed beside her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so I know this chapter has just been thrown in here with no context, but don't worry, context will be coming in the next chapter... 
> 
> Thank you for all your comments on the previous chapter, they really fuelled me to try and get this one out to you nice and quickly. (Also shout out to atlantisairlock who suggested the exact thing I was writing for this chapter, great minds think alike, I hope you enjoyed it...) Please leave me more, I love hearing from you all. And if you want to chat more, come and visit me on tumblr @oceansgate <3


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay here's the context for the previous chapter... well, kind of at least.

Sunlight slips under Lou’s eyelashes and she blinks them open. The brightness claws its way through her eyes to hammer at the back of her skull and she groans and rolls over in an attempt to shut it out. As the other side of her face makes contact with the pillow, her eyes lock onto the sleeping form beside her, soft blonde curls spilling across the sheets.

 _Fuck._ Lou groans again. She squeezes her eyes shut and clambers into her memories, trying to drag up a picture of what she did last night. Or rather _who_ she did last night. But the images are hazy, fragmented, and she can’t make out much past the early stages of the evening.

They had gone out to celebrate, that much Lou remembers. Her, Debbie, and Tammy, high off the success of their latest scheme, money leaping from their fingertips to the barman’s, shots lining up in front of them. Debbie had ordered tequila all around, Lou remembers that now. First mistake. Tequila might be Debbie’s drink of choice, and Lou can’t claim to dislike the drink itself, but she learnt years ago that tequila has drastic effects on her, sending her spinning into a vortex of wild decisions and blurred mistakes. Debbie knows that too, but when it’s time to have some fun, tequila still always seems to be the first word from her lips.

Lou opens her eyes again and squints at the tumbled mess of sheets and curls lying in her bed. She wonders if the sight of the woman’s face will prompt more memories, but all she can see is the back of her head. Lou tries to sit up to get a better look, but as soon as her head rises, an invisible hand clamps hard around her skull and squeezes, pushing her back down towards the pillow. So instead she throws herself back into the night before to search for more clues.

They were in the second bar of the night when Debbie had returned from the bathroom, dragging a doe-eyed man in a beautiful suit behind her (Lou remembers the suit, but that’s about all she remembers about the man).  Lou had given up on tequila at this point and had moved on to gin, but its demons were still coursing through her veins.

Suddenly a memory is yanked from the haze, the picture becoming clearer and clearer.

“This is Todd, he works in reinsurance.” Debbie had said, pulling the man into their little circle. Tammy had giggled, eyeing him up and down.

“Oooooh Todd’s hot…” Lou remembers the slight blush forming on the man’s cheeks as the words slipped from Tammy’s lips.

“Debbie’s friends are hot…” he’d replied, and something in his sneering manner had crawled under Lou’s skin and linked hands with the demons already swimming in her veins and pulled her forward. Before she knew what she was doing her hands were cupping his face, pulling his lips towards hers, tasting the inside of his mouth with her tongue.  She’d pulled away, wiped the back of her hand across her mouth and grimaced.

“You do not taste good.” Lou remembers the way Debbie had looked at her; shock, confusion, embarrassment (and maybe a little pride?) swirling across her face.

“Why, what does he taste like?” Tammy had asked.

“Like man.”

Lou feels the heat of embarrassment rising in her cheeks as the images flash before her. She has no idea what had possessed her to act like that. Tammy had found it hilarious but Lou wasn’t sure Deb had felt the same way. Either way, she now remembers Debbie leaving them not long after, the man’s arm curling around her waist, hand settled low on her hip. Lou also remembers the demons in her veins clawing their way out now, clambering down through her body to settle in her stomach.

After this point though, Lou’s memories blur into nothingness. She probably had some more to drink, maybe she and Tammy went to a third bar, and somewhere along the way she must have bumped into the blonde now sleeping in her bed. Done more than just bumped into her, judging by the collection of clothes littered across the floor of her room.

Lou wonders whether Tammy is awake, and is considering texting her to see if she can provide a more complete picture of the night, when the bundle of sheets next to her begins to move and Lou finds herself gazing into…

_Shit._

_Shit shit shit shit shit shit shit._

Whatever Lou was expecting, it wasn’t this.

“Morning,” Tammy says softly, eyelashes still heavy with sleep.

 After the initial wave of panic, Lou feels oddly calm. She was expecting to have to make awkward conversations with a stranger, was steeling herself for small talk and flustered interactions, so more than anything her overwhelming emotion is relief that the person lying next to her is someone she already knows how to relax around.

By way of reply, Lou shifts herself closer, lifting her arm up to create a space for Tammy to nestle into. Lou isn’t really into cuddling, to be honest she isn’t really into waking up next to someone at all - her usual style is a swift exit at some point in the early hours, before any actual sleep has taken place. But this, this feels… nice? The warmth of Tammy’s body seeping into hers, the way their fingers slot naturally together, the gentle softness of Tammy’s hair against her neck. Lou feels comforted. She feels peaceful.

“How are you feeling?” Tammy asks, her voice cracking slightly.

Lou turns her head and a slash of pain ricochets through it.

“Like shit,” she admits, laughing. “Jesus, how much did we drink last night?”

“Too much probably.”

Tammy’s thumb is tracing light circles on the back of Lou’s hand, and suddenly all Lou wants to do is close her mouth over every inch of Tammy’s skin, taste every part of her. She notices an inky bloom trailing along Tammy’s collarbone, and she reaches out a hand to place her fingers over the marks, gently touching the artwork she doesn’t remember painting. She wants to say something, but she can’t find the words. Two float to the surface and she opens her mouth to let them escape.

“I’m sorry.”

Tammy looks at her, eyes glistening. “What for?”

Lou doesn’t know. She doesn’t know why those were the words that rose from the depths of her, because she doesn’t feel sorry. She doesn’t feel regret. It surprises her, but its true.

“I don’t know.” A sigh wraps itself around them. “I just felt like I needed to apologise. I don’t know what for.”

“Lou you have nothing to apologise for. Trust me.”

And Lou finds she does.

Tammy’s lips find her neck and she shivers.

“I think I can find a way to make you feel a little less shit…” The whisper runs up her as the lips begin to move down, Lou’s back arching as they work their way slowly towards the place Lou wants them.

“Please…” she whispers, “please…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was kind of soft, but don't worry, the angst is coming...
> 
> Leave me your thoughts, I love hearing from you. I'm so thankful to everyone who takes the time to leave a comment, I love reading them. If you want more discussion, come and say hi on tumblr, I'm @oceansgate <3


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm happy you guys enjoyed Lou and Tammy, I really wasn't sure what the reaction was going to be!
> 
> Here's the next chapter for you, I hope you like it...

“I’m so happy I got to know you like this.” Tammy’s voice eases gently through the silence and Lou shifts closer, fingers trailing tenderly through her hair.

“Like what?”

“Like… _this.”_ Tammy turns and gestures her head up and down at Lou, lying on the bed coiled around her, their ankles interlocking.

Lou raises an eyebrow. “What, naked?” she says with a slight curl of her lip.

“No,” Tammy snorts softly, “Well, I mean yes, I am happy I’ve seen you naked but no that’s not what I meant.”

Lou elbows her gently in the ribs. “So what did you mean?”

Tammy sighs and sits up slightly, sunlight dripping through the blinds and pooling above her collarbone. “I remember when we first met. I was waiting for Debbie and you walked into the kitchen in your underwear, looking like a fucking goddess. A fucking goddess who wanted to murder me right there on your couch.”

Lou chuckles throatily. “You’re not wrong.”

“You terrified me. And intrigued me, but mostly terrified me. In those first few months, back in New York, I asked Debbie so many times what I’d done, why you clearly didn’t like me, didn’t want me there. But Debbie told me it was just how you were – tough as nails; icy and sharp with people you didn’t yet know, didn’t yet trust. I tried to believe her, to hold out for the day you decided to trust me.”

Lou’s fingers are now tracing small circles down Tammy’s ribs, trying to let the softness of the flesh beneath her fingertips seep into her, to take it and place it deep in her chest, where her lungs were curling around themselves, hardening to form a knot of steel. “God I was such an asshole.”

She feels the squeeze of Tammy’s hand low on her hip, feels its reassurance, yet also feels it tug on her insides, wrenching the knot tighter.

“No, but that’s exactly what I mean. You’re not an asshole. And you’re not terrifying. You’re complex and interesting and beautiful and funny and gentle and loving. And I’m so happy I got to discover all those things about you. Because I feel like not many people get that opportunity. And I’m grateful you let me.”

Lou digs into the skin right below Tammy’s bottom rib, letting her fingernails catch slightly. “Come on, I’m still a little bit terrifying, surely?”

Tammy’s eyes roll. “For fuck’s sake Lou, is that really all you got from that?”

Lou smirks, and in one swift movement, grips her thighs around Tammy’s waist and flips them so she’s sat on top of her, hands pressing Tammy’s shoulders down into the cloud of sheets.

“I can still be terrifying…” she growls, sinking her head down to take Tammy’s bottom lip between her teeth. She grazes a trail of kisses down Tammy’s neck, stopping to suck hard at curve of her shoulder, drawing the skin towards her tongue. Without warning she bites down, teeth clamping around flesh as her hand jams up hard against Tammy’s underwear. A guttural cry leaps from Tammy’s lips as her body jerks, back arching. Lou releases her, and pulls back grinning.

“Okay, okay,” Tammy pants, “You’re still terrifying. But you’re also all those other things too.” She pulls herself up, sliding out from between Lou’s legs until Lou finds herself nestled in Tammy’s lap, noses inches apart. Slowly, she lets her tongue creep from between her lips until it gently nudges the tip of Tammy’s nose. Giggles spill into the air, floating like bubbles up towards the ceiling. “See,” Tammy says, eyes glittering, “This is what I mean. I’m so happy I got to know silly, soft Lou Miller, as well as scary, sexy Lou Miller.”

They sit for a while, wrapped in each other, Lou swimming in the pool of Tammy’s gaze.

“I was such an asshole because I thought you were fucking Debbie.”

The sentence tumbles from Lou’s mouth to land in Tammy’s lap. Her eyes stayed glued to Tammy’s while her mind scrambles to figure out why it let the words fall out into the silence. She sees Tammy swallow.

“I did fuck Debbie. But only once.”  Tammy’s voice is hoarse, barely more than a whisper, and Lou sees the resistance of her tongue trying to prevent the words from leaving her lips. She reaches up a hand to cup Tammy’s cheek, thumb tenderly brushing across her lips.

“I know baby, I know.” The words are choking her now, clawing at her throat as they climb their way out. She sees Tammy’s eyes swell and then overflow, spilling silently down her cheeks, trickling over Lou’s fingers.

“You love her, don’t you.”

It’s not a question, it’s a statement. It leaves Tammy’s mouth rounded and soft, but by the time it reaches Lou its edge has formed into a sharp point which pierces straight through her.

She opens her mouth, ready to deny it, but all that comes out is empty air. Because it’s true – she does love Debbie, she always has and probably always will. But that doesn’t stop her loving what she’s created with Tammy over these past couple of weeks. Their intimacy has begun to mend a place in her she didn’t know was broken, to fill a void which until now had been sucking at her insides, constantly pulling her down and down and down, drawing everything towards a dark place she wasn’t even aware existed until the light of Tammy had shone down onto it.

Up until this point, Lou hadn’t really considered what it actually was she was doing with Tammy. What _they_ were. It was companionship, it was sex, it was… what? Since that first drunken night (most of which still evaded Lou’s memory) they’d spent almost every night together, sending each other over the edge, falling asleep in each other’s arms, waking to soft kisses and tender touches. But in the day they’d kept their distance. They hadn’t discussed it, but somehow a silent agreement had emerged – to keep Debbie out of the loop, to keep this thing (whatever it was) a secret between the two of them. Plus, in the back of Lou’s mind, she always knew it would be temporary, that in a couple more weeks Tammy would be flying back to New York to start her senior year of college.

But now that thought twists deep into her heart, ripping at the repairs Tammy had been steadily making inside her.

She feels the tears slipping down her cheeks now too.

Fiercely, she pulls Tammy in towards her, wrapping her arms around her back, squeezing her tightly into her chest. Tammy’s hands press onto the small of Lou’s back as her mouth finds Lou’s ear.

“It’s okay. It’s okay Lou.”

Lou’s entire body is shaking, confusion and anguish stabbing up through the scars, pouring out as the old wounds begin to gape open, bleeding into her guts.

“I’m…so…” Lou tries to force the words out through the sobs. “I’m so happy…” Tammy’s hands are in her hair now “…I got to…”cupping her face “…know you like this too Tammy.”

Then their mouths find each other and they tumble down into the sheets, tasting each other’s tears, mixed together into salty rivulets running over their lips.

“I’m sorry Tammy…” the whisper is barely distinguishable from the whimpers leaping between them. A moan trickles out of Tammy, attempting to mould itself into an understandable form.

“I’m sorry too, Lou.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you who wanted more soft Lou and Tammy, I hope you liked this...
> 
> For those of you who were looking forward to angst, I hope you like the little bit in this, and don't worry, plenty more is on the way...
> 
> As always, please leave your comment, thoughts, suggestions... reading them all really makes my day. I still can't believe so many people are enjoying my writing. And don't forget to come and say hi on tumblr @oceansgate, I love connecting with you over there :)


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry okay...

“Tammy’s not coming – she’s sick.” Lou slides into the seat next to Debbie and glances at the half finished drink in front of her. “Sorry, I know I’m late. Have you been here long?”

Debbie shrugs slightly. “No it’s okay, sorry I started without you. Tammy’s sick? Did she tell you that? She hasn’t texted me.”

Lou feels the weight of Debbie’s eyes as they sweep heavily across her face. Her brain tumbles over itself, scrabbling to find an answer. It flits back up to her room, replaying the image of Tammy, pale and shivering, tangled up in Lou’s sheets with cups of tea and medicine littered around her.

“Oh I bumped into her in the hallway on my way down here. That’s why I’m late – she looked awful, I think she’s caught the flu or something, so I sent her back to bed and then went to find her some medicine. I told her I’d tell you.”

Debbie raises an eyebrow and Lou tries to gaze evenly into her eyes. “Poor Tammy, do you think we’ve been overdoing it a bit these past few weeks? I hope we’re not sending her back to college exhausted and sick.”

The same thought had actually occurred to Lou and she’d said as much to Tammy as she’d sat cradling her head in her lap, tenderly pressing a cool flannel to Tammy’s burning forehead. Tammy had told Lou she wouldn’t have wanted her summer to be any other way and Lou had suddenly become so overwhelmed with emotion that the sniffing had caused Tammy to ask if Lou was coming down with what she had.

“No I think she’ll be fine in a couple of days,” Lou says, trying to convince herself as much as anything. “I think it’s just a virus she’s picked up somewhere.”

Debbie picks up her glass and motions it towards Lou. “Want a sip?” Lou takes it and swallows a mouthful before passing it back to Debbie, who promptly downs the rest. “So Tammy’s sick, but we’re still going out dancing, right?”

Lou grins and stands up, pulling Debbie up with her. “Oh baby, you bet we are.”

 

Lou can feel the thudding of the base surging up through her body long before they actually make it inside the club. She can feel its rhythm pulsating in her veins, syncing with her heartbeat to push adrenalin around her body. God she’s missed this. She loves bars – drinking, people watching, flirting – but there’s something about a proper club that really gets her going. The way the music wraps around her, picks up her body and slams it down over and over again until she’s sweaty and gasping for air. The way the lights and the pulsating crowd heighten her every sense, setting all her nerve endings on fire. Lou finds dancing in clubs such a high that she almost doesn’t need anything else, one or two drinks and she’s set for the evening, just enough to loosen her ligaments and free her soul.

Debbie, on the other hand, seems set on getting wasted this evening. She pulls Lou over to the bar after just a couple of songs, her eyes glittering in the swirling lights. Lou just asks for a water and downs it, in an attempt to soothe her racing lungs, making a mental note to either go out like this more often, or start some kind of exercise regime. Debbie does the same, except her glass contains a double vodka on the rocks, not water. They pause for a moment, panting slightly and staring at each other, before Lou grabs Debbie’s hand and pulls her back towards the dance floor.

The night repeats itself in this way; frenetic, screaming, full-out-with-feeling dancing punctuated with quick trips to the bar to catch their breath and soothe their lungs. They are wild eyed, they are electric, they are eighteen again, alive and on the edge. At one point Lou catches Debbie’s face between her hands and they both stop, completely still in a sea of swirling bodies. Debbie’s hair is cascading over her cheeks, tremoring slightly from the surge of the bass, and the strap of her dress has slipped down, leaving a long unbroken line of skin from the tip of her shoulder all the way along her collarbone. Her face is flushed and dripping in sweat, and as the lights catch it, for a moment she looks to Lou as if she’s made from diamonds.

Lou wants to hold this moment in her hands for the rest of her life. She clutches Debbie’s face, trying to keep the earth still, trying to commit every single detail to memory – the picture of Debbie in front of her, the sensations pounding in her body, the smells, the sounds, the sweat trickling down her back… all of it. She wants all of it to be hers forever. But then the swell of the music catches her again and they are drawn back into the whirlwind.

In the early hours of the morning they tumble out onto the street, exhaustion seeping through their bones. It’s only as they begin to stagger back towards their hotel that Lou realises how drunk Debbie actually is. Her arm is draped around Lou’s shoulder and she’s leaning heavily on her, and Lou’s legs seem to be doing all the work in moving the two of them along the sidewalk. Debbie mumbles something unintelligible into Lou’s ear, words slurring together as fall from her tongue, drenched in alcohol.

Eventually they make it back and are stumbling down their hallway, door to Debbie’s room in sight, when Lou’s back can’t take it anymore and she crashes into the wall, legs buckling beneath her. Despite Lou having been practically holding her up this whole time, somehow Debbie manages to catch her, hands gripping firmly under her arms.

“Whoa there partner,” Debbie slurs, “Did someone have a little too much to drink?” One eye attempts a wink.

Lou rolls her eyes. “Yeah, _someone_ did, and it wasn’t me,” she mutters.

They stand there for a second, both panting slightly. Debbie’s hands are pushing Lou into the wall and her breath is punching at Lou’s face in short, hot bursts. There’s a look in Debbie’s eyes that Lou can’t quite place, and it’s making the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.

“You look so beautiful tonight.” The words are soft and warm, riding Debbie’s breath from her mouth to Lou’s skin.

And then Debbie closes the gap between them and her breath is no longer on Lou’s skin, it’s in her mouth, mixing with her own, leaping down her throat and settling in her lungs. Lou’s lips move against Debbie’s, doing all the things they’ve longed to do for years while Lou’s brain races to keep up, trying to haul itself to the surface, to stay afloat in this situation. For a moment her brain fails, and she’s drowning in Debbie’s touch, sinking into the feeling of Debbie’s hands in her hair, around her waist, cupping her chin.

But then her brain grabs hold of something solid and concrete and an image of Tammy curled up in her bed flashes in front of her eyes and yanks her sharply back to the surface, gasping for air.

“Debbie…” she croaks, her voice only just under her command.

Debbie’s hands are everywhere and Lou grabs them, clutching them together inside hers. Unperturbed, Debbie leans back in to clasp Lou’s lips between hers again. Every fibre in Lou’s body, every single cell, wants to dive into Debbie, to respond to her touch in the most natural way. Her skin draws itself towards Debbie’s, trying to break the boundaries between them so the atoms of each other can fuse together, explode together, create something new together.

But her mind is alert and conscious and it wrestles to gain control over her body, tearing her mouth away from Debbie’s.

“Debbie, stop.” The words are quiet but forceful, and Debbie pulls back from her instantly.

“Lou?” Her voice sounds like a small child’s, lost and confused.

“Come on Debbie, you’re drunk. You don’t really want this.” It hurts Lou to say the words, but she knows they’re true.

Debbie leans in close again, her tongue dragging across Lou’s ear as she speaks “I do want this Lou, I want you. You look so fucking sexy tonight, please, let me have what I want.”

“No.” The single syllable slashes through the air and Lou sees it stab straight into Debbie’s heart.

“No? Lou Miller, when have you ever said no to me?” The words are doused in alcohol and they stumble as they make their way to Lou but she still feels the sharp sting of truth at their core. She looks up into Debbie’s eyes to see them distant and glassy, consciousness only flickering faintly across them.

“Okay Debbie Ocean, I’ll give you that one.” Lou sighs, pushing herself off from the wall and looping an arm underneath Debbie’s shoulders, practically carrying her back to her room, Debbie’s mouth still nestling into her neck. “But there’s a first time for everything.”

It seems to take an eternity to wrestle Debbie into her bed and persuade her to let go of her grip on Lou’s fingers. But as soon as her head hits the pillow, her eyes shut and the last slip of consciousness ebbs from her body. Lou fills a large glass of water from the tap in the bathroom to leave by Debbie’s bed, and as she does so she catches sight of herself in the mirror, the harsh artificial light revealing an image Lou would rather she hadn’t seen. Her hair is damp with sweat, and sticking out from her head at odd angles, and her makeup has begun to slide off her face. Her cheeks are still flushed from the exertion of dancing the night away and then hauling Debbie back across town, but the pink hue pales in comparison to the bright red smear blooming outwards from her lips, dappled with deep purple stains where Debbie’s lipstick has mingled with hers.

Lou sighs, and tears her eyes away from the miserable figure staring at her from the mirror, taking the glass of water back into Debbie’s room and placing it on the table next to her bed. Gently, she peels Debbie’s damp hair away from her forehead and smoothes it onto the pillow, then leans in to place her lips softly onto the patch of glistening skin.

“Goodnight Debbie” she whispers, before creeping to the door and slipping through it back into the hallway. Lou begins to walk towards her own door when her eyes latch onto a shape leaning against it, eyes staring straight through the silence into Lou’s, tears pouring steadily from them. Lou’s heart leaps into her mouth and then explodes before a single word crawls out of it.

“Tammy…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so I know I promised you all angst, but you're going to have to wait until the next chapter for it...
> 
> Please leave your comments, I really want to hear your thoughts on these developments! I love all my readers and I love how much you engage with the work, thank you so much! As always, come and find me on tumblr @oceansgate if you want to chat all thing lou and debbie <3


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Fallout, part one...

“Tammy…” 

Lou hears the sound, a wounded animal letting out a cry of pain and fear, but she doesn’t recognise it as her own voice, doesn’t feel her mouth move to make the noise. She isn’t aware of anything but Tammy’s eyes shining down the darkened hallway, hurling themselves at Lou, leaping out and tearing at her, punching her in the gut over and over and over again. Tammy’s eyes… screaming truth after truth at her louder than any sound from Tammy’s mouth ever could. Lou sees the pain and she feels it searing through her own skin. She sees the betrayal, and it slices across her chest. And she sees the resignation, the knowledge that had always been there bubbling below the surface now spilling over, and it sends her stomach plunging down and down and down.

In three long strides, Lou closes the gap between them and grasps Tammy’s face between her hands, leaning in close until their foreheads press against each other.

“No” Lou breathes fiercely, her eyes reaching into Tammy’s, trying to wrap themselves around everything they contain, trying to wrench it out of her. “No Tammy. No no no no no no no.”

Tammy holds the silence between them. When the words eventually come, they contain none of the fire Lou was expecting. They are soft. They are sad. But they are not angry.

“It will always be her, won’t it?”

The fire of anger; Lou has weapons against that. She can meet it with shields and barriers and she can launch it straight back, hurled from the pit which sits constantly alight in the depths of her stomach. But this, these quiet seeds of anguish, she is defenceless to their power. She inhales them and they stick to the inside of her throat. They land in her stomach and throw down roots, curling into her. They hook themselves into all the soft places inside her and then they release their poison, sending sharp bursts of pain radiating through her.

She hears the truth in Tammy’s words but also, she knows her own truth.

“Tammy I...”

“No,” Tammy interjects softly, placing a hand on top of Lou’s, still wrapped around her face. “You don’t need to explain. Or say anything.” 

She inhales and Lou feels the tremors of her body rock through them both. “I saw you two. I heard a noise and I came out to see if… but all I saw was you. And her. Wrapped up in each other. I saw you kiss. I saw you go into her room. And I see you now. I don’t need any explanation.” 

Tammy’s voice is still soft, still without the heat of anger that Lou expects. That Lou craves even. Lou knows what to do with anger. 

“You love her, Lou. And I don’t blame you. I blame myself, for ever thinking that this could be something. I blame myself for even hoping...” As Tammy’s voice cracks over the last word, Lou falls apart.

Her hands release from Tammy’s face and reach around her back, pulling her away from the door and into her body. They tremble together, a tangled storm of love and lust and sorrow and suffering. 

Lou’s lips find Tammy’s neck and they bury themselves into her soft flesh, trying to press the unspoken words etched into her tongue onto Tammy’s skin.  _I turned her down... I said no_  her lips scream.  _I wouldn’t... I couldn’t..._ Her kisses become more frantic as she feels Tammy begin to crumble beneath her.

“Tammy listen to me, please...” This time her lips manage to form real words, pushing them into Tammy’s ear. “I didn’t... I couldn’t...”

And finally Tammy’s softness turns to steel and she shoves Lou away from her, hard. There’s fire in her eyes now.

“Lou don’t. Don’t fucking lie to me. Please. Don’t you think you at least owe me that?”

“Tammy, please… please believe me… Debbie, she was drunk, she kissed me but I stopped her, she asked me…she wanted me to… but I said no. I said no Tammy. I put her to bed and then left. I promise you Tammy…” Lou is choking on the words as she hurries to free them from her body, hoping that by throwing them out into the air they will somehow make more sense – to her and to Tammy.

“But why? Why would you say no?” The flash of anger is gone, and Tammy’s voice has returned to a fluttering whisper. “You love her don’t you?”

“Because I…because…”

 _Because I love her and I don’t want to be just another one of her drunken conquests. Because that’s not how it was supposed to be. Because she doesn’t love me and I need her to love me first. Because I have you._ The reasons career around Lou’s brain, crashing into one another, pounding against her skull. She tries to seize one, searching to find one she can grab onto which will make Tammy understand without tearing her apart.

“Because I love her but I don’t _want_ her. I want you. And I have you, and I don’t want to hurt you Tammy.” She looks into Tammy’s eyes and knows it’s too late for that. “But I have hurt you, and I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry Tammy, you don’t deserve this.”    

Gently, Tammy takes Lou’s hand and opens the door, pulling her back into the room. Suddenly the emotion of the entire night becomes too much for her body to handle and it splits open, unleashing an earthquake of tears which rip through her, shaking her body in violent spasms. As Tammy guides her across the room and into the bathroom, Lou tries to speak, tries to apologise over and over for the mess she’s made, the pain she’s caused, her inability to deal with the repercussions for her own stupid actions. But the only sounds that come out are a series of frantic howls, each one causing her body to shatter into a million more pieces than the last.

Lou is aware of Tammy peeling off her clothes, helping her into the shower. She is aware of Tammy, (naked now too) tenderly, painstakingly, massaging shampoo into her scalp, peppering her skin with kisses as she brings a washcloth to Lou’s face, rinsing off the streaks of tears and messed up makeup, letting them disappear down the drain. Tammy’s careful attention sends waves of guilt crashing through her – Lou knows she is the one who has caused the hurt and the pain - she should be the one taking care of Tammy, washing the tears from _her_ face. But it’s all she can do to stand up and let the water pour over her, hands gripping tightly at Tammy wherever she can hold on.

As Tammy leads Lou over to the bed, both of them wrapped in a giant white towel, Lou finally manages to find her voice again.

“I’m so sorry Tammy, I-”

But Tammy closes her mouth over Lou’s, preventing the words from coming out, as she pulls her down onto the bed. So Lou resigns herself to apologising physically instead.

She wraps herself around Tammy, cradling her tightly into her body, hands rubbing circles over her belly, her legs, her chest. Lou lets her lips roam over the back of Tammy’s neck with none of her usual aggression. Each kiss is tender and caring, containing a thousand words and a thousand promises. Lou wants to cover every inch of Tammy’s body in these kisses but even then it won’t be enough to take away from what she knows she can’t give to her. So instead she holds her close, tries to give her comfort and reassurance in its place. Her hand dips down and she finds Tammy warm and wet, waiting for Lou’s fingers, yearning for her touch and the pleasure they bring.  Lou feels each pulse reverberating through Tammy’s body and with every one she hugs her closer, keeping Tammy nestled in to her, whimpering in her embrace.

And when Tammy comes and Lou feels every cell in her skin quivering and alive against her own, she finds herself whispering the words of apology into Tammy’s ear over and over again, tears pouring down her cheeks. Because she’s not just sorry for tonight. She’s sorry for always; Tammy’s words from earlier ringing in her ears…

_It will always be her, won’t it?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay, I hope you liked this, it took me serveral attempts to write! I couldn't decide exactly how I wanted it to play out and whether Tammy would be the strong one or Lou. I hope it came out okay.
> 
> Let me know what you think, your comments really inspire me and I appreciate every single one of them. Also come and ask me questions or have a chat on tumblr @oceansgate <3


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Fallout, part 2...

The sound of knocking enters Lou’s dreams, wrapping itself around her and tugging her into the world. Groaning, she rolls over to glance at her watch: one thirty in the afternoon. Lou wasn’t sure what she was expecting – it was nearly seven when she finally slipped into bed after all – but still, it alarms her slightly that she’s slept so late.

The knocking comes again and Lou shifts out of bed, sleep still clinging to her as she makes her way over to the door. Just as she’s about to open it, she glances down and realises she should probably put some clothes on first. A large shirt is lying thrown over the chair next to her and Lou grabs it, quickly shoving it over her head as the knock pounds on the door again.

“Jesus, alright, I’m coming…” Lou mutters, smoothing the shirt down as she grasps at the door handle.

As the door opens and reveals the person on the other side, a sharp shoot of _something_ stabs into Lou’s gut. She opens her mouth.

“Oh uhhhh… morning Debbie?”

Debbie flicks her wrist to look at her watch and then glances back up at Lou, a smirk creeping across her face. “It’s afternoon actually.”

Lou rolls her eyes. “What do you want Debbie?” The words come out sharper than she had intended, cutting through the air between them. She sees Debbie’s eyes blink as they slice into her.

Debbie exhales and Lou watches as her body softens, chest sinking back towards her spine. “I just wanted to come by and…” she pauses and Lou looks up at her expectantly. “Well, I just wanted to say I’m sorry. For last night.”

Lou stays silent. She wonders precisely which part of the night Debbie is apologising for.

“I was so wasted. I was such a mess… I really shouldn’t have got that drunk – it wasn’t fair on you, I’m sorry.”

Lou feels her eyebrow raise a fraction, and she folds her arms across her chest. “Debbie, you’ve got shit-faced plenty of times before. And this isn’t the first time one of us has carried the other home. What are you really apologising for?”

Lou doesn’t know why she’s digging. There isn’t a single bone in her body that wants to discuss what happened last night right now. But also, Debbie coming to her door to apologise for _being too drunk…_ the insincerity of it stings.

“I…” Debbie stutters. “I just wanted to tell you…” Lou sees Debbie’s eyes flit over her shoulder into the room behind her. A jolt of realisation shoots through Lou, and she is suddenly acutely aware of Tammy’s sleeping form curled up in the sheets behind her. She edges closer to the doorframe, letting the door hug around her.

Debbie’s eyes narrow. “Wait, Lou… what’s going on?”

“What’s going on? I don’t know Debbie, you tell me. Why did you come here? What are you really trying to say to me right now?”

Lou edges forward another inch, attempting to block Debbie’s view into her room, but she can see that the words of apology have completely escaped Debbie’s grasp now, a pale fury setting up residence in her eyes instead.

“Lou…” she says, her voice soft and dangerous. “Who is that?”

She’s asking the question, but she already knows the answer, Lou can tell that at once.

“How long has she been there?”

“Been where?”

“Been in your bed Lou?”

 Lou knows this isn’t the time for snark and sarcasm but she can’t help herself. “I don’t know, since whatever time she went to bed last night?”

The words ignite the fuse of Debbie’s anger and she explodes. “HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN SLEEPING WITH TAMMY BEHIND MY BACK LOU? TELL ME, HOW LONG?”

The words ricochet off the walls, bouncing into Lou’s ears, and then without warning, Debbie is shoving past her, striding into the room, trailing sparks of fury behind her. Lou grabs at her arm, but Debbie pulls roughly away.

“Debbie get out of my room.” Lou snarls. “Get the fuck out.”

Lou is staring straight at Debbie, their eyes locked together in combat, but in the corner of her vision she sees the bundle of sheets move, Tammy’s eyes screaming at her from across the room.

“Why?” Debbie spits back, the venom in her voice seeping through Lou’s skin. “So you can fuck Tammy in privacy?”

“Well I’m sure as hell not going to do it in front of you, am I?” Lou hurls back. Her voice is louder than she anticipated, and she sees Tammy flinch, shrinking away from her. It sends a wave of pain through her and she forces herself to breathe, to attempt to reign in her temper.

“Lou how dare you. How dare you have the audacity to-“

“To what?” Lou cuts her off. “To have sex with Tammy? It’s not like it’s anything you haven’t done.”

Debbie stares at her, mouth open, blinking. Lou sees Tammy now sat up in bed, hugging the sheets around her, tears falling silently down her face. For an instant, Lou has the irrational urge to take Debbie by the hair and throw her across the room. She wants to pin her up against the wall and scream obscenities in her face for coming in here and dragging poor Tammy into all of this. But then, as quickly as it came, the anger is gone and Lou is just tired, so tired of this endless circus.

“Tammy, honey” she says softly. “Why don’t you go take a shower?” But Tammy shakes her head furiously, droplets flying off her cheeks.  

Debbie is still staring at her, flames burning up her face and leaping out of her eyes.

“Why are you so angry Debbie? I have every right to sleep with whoever I please. And so does Tammy.” Lou flicks her eyes over to the bed and tries to throw Tammy a reassuring smile, but she’s not sure her face manages to contort into the right arrangement for the message to carry. She turns back to Debbie, her voice quiet. “Is it because I chose her over you?”

Debbie takes a step towards her, and now they are inches apart, and for a second Lou thinks Debbie is going to grab her face and kiss her again, right there in front of Tammy. But she doesn’t. She stops and Lou sees something else flickering in the flames. Something more subtle than just pure anger.

 “What are you talking about Lou?” Her voice is low and razor sharp.

“I’m talking about you, last night. Drunk out of your mind, kissing me, telling me you want me, telling me that _I never fucking say no to you_ but guess what Debbie Ocean? I did. Last night I said no to you and your giant fucking ego can’t take it.”

Lou’s words hang in the air between, suspended by the silence. And then Debbie opens her mouth and they fall, crashing to earth and shattering into a million pieces.

“You disgust me.”

Debbie’s words strike through Lou’s heart. They bury themselves deep into a place in Lou which she had thought was bulletproof. But hearing those words come from Debbie’s mouth ruptures all her defences, ripping open a fresh wound inside her which bleeds out hate and oppression.

“I disgust you? _I_ disgust _you_?! Maybe we should talk how much you disgust yourself before you start on me? I might make bad decisions sometimes, but at least I’m not so revolted by who I am that I have to get completely off my fucking face just to kiss a woman. At least I don’t have to go around spouting bullshit like _oh I was soo drunk, I was so wasted, I was such a mess_ to feel comfortable loving who I love.”

It’s like everything is falling into place in Lou’s head. The way Debbie acts around her. Their casual intimacy, the way Debbie touches her almost enough but not quite, the flirtatious undercurrent that runs through all their conversations, the shit with Tammy… and then the absolute refusal to acknowledge any of it. And now, last night. Deep down, Lou knows she should be helping her friend. She should be providing support, guiding her through what she’s feeling and extracting the hate from it so only the love remains. But right now Debbie’s words and her actions are hurting Lou too much to do that. They cut too close to her heart.

 Lou’s voice is shaking now. She tries to control it but her words are swelling with the poison leaking through her body from the wound Debbie ripped into her.

 “You say I disgust you and suddenly I understand why. It’s because you can see in me all the parts of you that disgust yourself. How much do you hate me Debbie? That’s the question I’m asking myself now. Because I see how much you hate yourself, how you push your feelings down and deny their existence because it makes you sick, and I wonder how you could _ever_ stand to be friends with me?”   

Lou takes a breath. She sees the tears streaming down Debbie’s face. She sees the pain wracking through her but she can’t turn back. Debbie has uncovered something in Lou she didn’t know was buried there, and its venom is slowly beginning to work its way through her veins, steadily making its way towards her heart. Once it reaches there, Lou knows it will kill her.

Lou can see how much her words have hurt Debbie, but it only mirrors the pain she’s feeling herself. The realisation that her best friend hates the part of herself which is such a big part of who Lou is… it’s tearing her apart. Debbie could have stood there and screamed that she hated Lou’s guts and it would have hurt less than this. Because this is a hatred that runs deeper than words and it’s a hatred Lou never realised she would have to fight with Debbie.

She sees Debbie is still standing in front of her but she doesn’t have the energy to say anything else. Then she hears Tammy’s voice; soft but steady.

“Debbie. You need to leave now.”

And, without another word, she does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so I'm still not 100% happy with how the second part of this came out, it's kind of clunky and I hope I actually got across what I was trying to portray. Basically Lou realised that Debbie is struggling with a severe case of internalised homophobia...
> 
> Let me know your thoughts and reactions to this chapter - what are your opinions on what Debbie says to Lou and what Lou says to Debbie? I love reading all your comments, they really make my day! Thank you so much to everyone reading this, I love you all. Don't forget to come and say hi on tumblr, I'm @oceansgate <3


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, I just want to say thank you so much for the incredible response to the last chapter - I was a little nervous to post it but I'm glad you like the direction I took it. I apologise for the slightly longer-than-usual gap between updates, I couldn't 100% decide how I wanted this chapter to go...

Lou doesn’t know how long she stands there, eyes glued to the door Debbie disappeared through. Her thoughts are racing around her body, leaping from her head to her stomach, running up and down her spine and throwing themselves against the inside of her skin. Her lungs feel heavy. She wants to reach a hand down her throat and grasp her fist around the swirling storm, pull and pull and pull until there’s nothing left inside her. She wants to be an empty shell, just skin and hair and teeth and nothing else because she can’t stand to feel all this anymore. It’s too much.

Lou becomes aware of a hand gently squeezing her shoulder. Words are floating around somewhere in her periphery but the endless roar of the ocean drowning her from within engulfs the words before Lou manages to catch a hold of them. The hand at her shoulder becomes two, and they’re encircling her waist and pulling her in until her chest is pressed up against the warmth of another body. Lou knows it is Tammy and she knows she should be grateful. She tries to make her body work, to make it respond to the intimacy with a softening and a quietening but the waves keep coming and coming and coming. They crash over her head and swell in her lungs and she in unable to do anything but stay rigid and taut, a desperate attempt to keep her head above water.

It could be minutes, it could be hours, Lou doesn’t know, but gradually the tide recedes and she is able hear again, to focus on the soft words Tammy is dribbling into her ear.

“Breathe with me Lou… come on baby, hold on with me… everything’s going to be okay, I promise… I’ve got you baby, don’t worry… you can fall apart on me if you need… I’m here baby, I’m right here…”

The tender reassurances seep through Lou, soft honey dripping into the storm; sweetening it, softening it. She feels them working their way through her body, easing into her pores, relaxing her bones.

Tentatively, Lou draws her hands up from her sides (where they’ve been glued, fists clenched) and presses them into Tammy’s back. Her fingers clutch at Tammy’s skin. Her head dips forward and comes to rest in the crook of Tammy’s neck, nose buried in her soothing scent. Lou closes her eyes. Allows herself to fall apart in Tammy’s arms for a moment. Allows herself to let Tammy hold her above the waves for a moment.

And a moment is all it takes. When she opens her eyes, she can see again.

“Tammy, I’m so sorry.”

Lou feels Tammy’s grip on her loosen, and then Tammy pulls back so they are looking into each other’s eyes.

“Do not apologise Lou. Please.”

Lou ignores her. “Tammy I’m so sorry you had to sit there, vulnerable and exposed, while Debbie and I screamed at each other. Every time I looked at you I wanted to stop, but I couldn’t. I’m so sorry.”

Tammy reaches out a hand and drags it softly over Lou’s cheek. A shiver jumps from Lou’s skin into her fingers.

“Lou,” she says, hand now trailing down her neck, “do not apologise. That was ugly, yes. It was heartbreaking. Parts of it were terrifying. But it was necessary. It’s all out there now Lou, and it might look monstrous but at least the monster’s not inside you anymore.” Her hand settles on Lou’s chest, thumb resting on the bone right between her breasts, and Lou can feel her heart desperately trying to join with Tammy’s touch.

“You and Debbie… you need to figure this out. She needs you Lou. And you need to help her, whether you want to or not. Because if you don’t you’ll hate yourself for the rest of your life.”

Lou inhales deeply, sucking in Tammy’s words. Her ribs widen, and Tammy’s hand spreads out, then contracts again as Lou lets the air whistle from her body.

“Oh little Tammy. Sweet, beautiful Tammy, when did you get so wise?”

Time stretches around them, threading itself through their fingers and trailing through their hair. They stand in complete stillness as they dive into each other, the skin over Lou’s breastbone oozing into Tammy’s hand, her fingertips melting into the skin of Tammy’s waist.

When time lets them go, Lou opens her mouth. “What about us?” she asks. “What about you?”

Tammy smiles softly and brings her lips up to momentarily close over Lou’s. It’s almost enough to bring Lou to her knees.

“Don’t worry about me, Lou. I’ll be fine. I’ll go back to school and throw myself into studying, like I would have done whatever way this summer ended. I was never not going back, you know that right?”

 Lou nods – she did know this but she hadn’t been letting herself think about it. But still, she didn’t want them to end like this. On bad terms. On Debbie.

“Tammy I’m sorry…”

Tammy laughs then, releasing Lou’s chest and bringing both hands up to thread her fingers through Lou’s hair.

“Lou!” she laughs, pulling Lou’s head down towards hers. “For god’s sake stop apologising! You are incredible, do you know that? I think you are magnificent and adorable and so fucking beautiful and I will cherish these memories with you forever. Don’t say sorry for what’s been the best summer of my life.”

Tammy closes her mouth over Lou’s again and this time, before she can pull away, Lou has pressed her hand against the back of Tammy’s skull and slipped her tongue between Tammy’s lips. She kisses her languidly, indulgently, tenderly. If this is going to be the last time she tastes Tammy, Lou wants to savour it. She wants to enjoy every flavour that seeps from Tammy’s skin, she wants to sink her teeth into every inch of her pale flesh. She wants to devour Tammy one final time.

 

As they lie wrapped in one another, bodies still trembling slightly from the pleasure they pulled from each other, Tammy lets a whisper slink into Lou’s ear.

“You know, I’ve always found Debbie very attractive too… maybe once you two have worked something out, we could all… work something out?”

Lou jabs an elbow into Tammy’s ribs. “Fuck off Tammy,” she whispers playfully. “I’ve waited so long for Debbie, if we do manage to ever work this out, do you really think I’ll want to share her?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I know there are going to be some people mourning the end of Lou and Tammy, but it had to happen at some point right? And you never know what might happen in the future...
> 
> Please let me know your thoughts, reading your comments always makes my day! I love every single one of my readers and I love it when I hear what you think. As always, don't forget to visit me on tumblr @oceansgate <3


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this chapter is a little longer than I usually make them. I debated splitting it into two but there wasn't really a natural place to cut it. I hope you enjoy...

Lou stares at the wood in front of her, eyes running up and down the pattern of the grain. In her mind’s eye she sees her hand come up, balled into a fist. Hears the sound as it makes contact, sees the door open, falling away from her skin. She pictures the face behind it. Her throat closes over and her breath shakes and her arms stay pinned to her sides, unable to follow through the actions she played out in her mind.

Lou doesn’t want to be here. She doesn’t want to be doing this. But Tammy had insisted. Tammy had slipped inside her ear and slunk her way down her spine and wrapped her words around Lou’s bones until Lou found herself walking out of her room and down the hallway towards Debbie’s. Tammy had told her she needed to do this, but honestly Lou wasn’t so sure. She didn’t know if she could say the things to Debbie that Tammy thought she should. In fact, she’d begged Tammy to come with her, to say them for her, but Tammy had looked at her with that exasperated sigh that told Lou she was being ridiculous, and nudged her out into the hallway, leaving her alone to find the words.

Lou inhales deeply, sucking in the empty air and begging it to fill her with courage. She can’t stand outside Debbie’s door forever, waiting to knock – at some point, eventually, Debbie will come out and find Lou there, and that would be worse. Infinitely worse. Using this thought to spur her on, Lou lifts her hand and makes contact with the wood.  The sound is soft and completely unlike the noise Lou is used to hearing as her knuckles connect with something. She wonders if Debbie even heard it. She doesn’t think she has it in her to try again.

 But the door swings open and Lou leaps back, realising she had been standing only inches away from it. Her eyes lock with Debbie’s; red and swollen, tears still streaked over her cheeks. Lou’s heart plummets to her stomach then shoots up into the back of her throat, where it lodges firmly against her windpipe, blocking the path for any words to climb out. She just stares at Debbie, and Debbie stares back.

The air between them is thick. Lou wants to reach out a hand, to brush her fingers over Debbie’s jaw and rub her thumb over the tears dried onto the skin below her eyes, but she doesn’t think she has the strength to push through the denseness of the space separating them. But then she sees the tiniest shake of Debbie’s head and the movement of her hand on the edge of the door and Lou springs forward, wedging herself into the doorframe as Debbie attempts to shut her out. Lou looks down and sees her hand has come to rest on Debbie’s forearm. She sees the reaction on Debbie’s skin, goosebumps fanning out from Lou’s fingertips.

Lou jerks her hand away.                                                 

Debbie just stares at her.

Lou wills her mouth to work. Tries to connect her brain to her body and she does, she manages it. Her lips twitch, mouth opens.

But her heart is still wedged solidly in her throat, strangling any sound attempting to escape from her body. Not that Lou can form those sound into words right now - her brain might have connected to her muscles, but it was failing to sort the jumble of emotions racing through her into any kind of coherent words.

Lou wishes she could plunge her hand straight into her chest, wrestle with everything she is feeling and wrench it out so it sits in the palm of her hand. She wishes she could pass it to Debbie, let her know all the things she needs to know through this swirling storm of  _stuff_ torn from her heart and her stomach and her lungs. Lou wishes there was no need for words, because she can’t find a way to twist them into a form which conveys everything she wants Debbie to understand.

“Lou, if you have nothing to say, please leave.” Debbie’s voice is coarse and cracking, and it strikes straight through Lou. “Actually, even if you do have something to say, please leave.”

Lou parts her lips again, but still nothing falls out of them. She takes a step forward instead, hoping this will convey to Debbie that she has no intention of leaving. 

“Lou...”  

That word, her name, envelops her. Its sound, falling from Debbie’s lips, feels so familiar as it brushes against her skin. She wishes she could bathe in it forever. And she wants to return the favour. Finally, her heart releases its grip on her throat enough to let the word pass.

“Deb...” 

“I’m serious, please leave. You clearly have nothing to say to me, and I have nothing to say to you either.”

Lou tries to summon the words, tries to remember the things she and Tammy had talked about, tries to say even just the two words she needs to say most. But before she can, Debbie opens her mouth again.

“Actually, I do have one thing to say to you. You’re wrong.”

_Wrong about what?_

Lou says the words in her head, screams them silently at Debbie. There’s a beat, and then Debbie answers, and Lou wonders whether the sound did actually escape her lips, or if the words merely leaped at Debbie from her eyes.

“I don’t hate you. I could never hate you. None of this is about you.”

“It is though. Can’t you see? It could never not be about me.”

This time Lou knows she has said the words out loud because she sees the way Debbie flinches as they reach her ears. She sees her eyes cloud over, the walls go up.

“Goodbye Lou,” Debbie says voice suddenly sharp as she attempts to force Lou out by shutting the door around her.

But Lou is too strong, too fast for Debbie, and she pushes back against her and with a sudden burst of force, strides past Debbie into her room. 

Lou’s heart is still pounding, but it’s slipping back down her throat, back towards the empty hole in her rib cage, finally freeing a gap for the words to pour out.

“No.”

The first word that comes rings through the room like a bell, clear and strong. Lou sees Debbie flinch and she feels her heart begin to rise again but she swallows it down.

“No Debbie. We need to talk about this. It’s hurting me, this thing inside you, so god knows what it’s doing to you. Ripping you apart probably, eating you alive, killing you as it gnaws away at your insides.”

Lou takes a step forward, reaches out a hand to gently curve around Lou’s upper arm. She squeezes softly. “I’m sorry Debbie,” she whispers, all the harshness now evaporating from her voice. “I’m sorry for all the things I said to you earlier. But it hurt. Realising how much you…” Lou swallows, voice thick with tears, willing them to stay inside her. If she lets them tip her over the edge she will never be able to say the things she needs to say. To help Debbie in the ways she knows she needs to. “It really fucking hurt Debbie.”

“I’m sorry too Lou.” Lou can hear the tears in Debbie’s voice now too.

“I’m sorry that I hurt you, because trust me, that’s the last thing I would ever want to do. After last time, after you left, I swore to myself that when you came back I wouldn’t let myself do anything that could hurt you ever again.” The words tumble out of her and Lou can see Debbie’s back shuddering every time she takes a breath. She knows Debbie is barely holding on, trying to force her words out before her grasp slips.

“It tore me apart, seeing you so broken because of me. It ruined me Lou. After you left, I was a mess – I hated myself for destroying us, and I missed you, I fucking missed everything about you. So I said, never again. Once you get her back, never again. How did I fuck this up, Lou? How?” The last few words come through a torrent of tears and hiccupped breath and in an instant Lou has wrapped herself around Debbie, burying her nose into her hair and squeezing her arms tight, holding Debbie together so she can fall apart.

And she does. The sobs rip through Debbie and into Lou, the sound of Debbie’s pain burning in Lou’s throat. Lou holds Debbie tight and waits for the storm to be over, letting wave after wave come crashing over her but never letting go. When the earthquakes ricocheting through Debbie eventually calm to soft tremors, Lou pulls away slightly, tucking a hand gently under Debbie’s chin. She slips a thumb under Debbie’s eye, wiping away the tears.

“Debbie…” Lou knows what she’s about to say could pull the storm clouds right back over their heads, ruining the calm beginning to settle around them, but she knows she has to go there. “We still need to talk about what you’re feeling. About me. Or fuck, I don’t know, about another woman, any woman. About women in general.” Lou knows she’s fumbling for words now, the nerves that have been bubbling in her stomach since she walked out of her room and into the hallway now threatening to rise up and spill over. “And we need to talk about how you’re dealing with it.” Lou tries to keep her voice soft, to hide the hurt and the fear.

Debbie’s eyes drip as they gaze into Lou’s. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Lou resists the urge to roll her eyes. To shout. To take Debbie by the shoulders and shake her until the confession she burns to hear falls out of her. No, she and Tammy discussed this. Be gentle. Be patient. Be supportive. Everyone processes things at different rates and in different ways. That was what Tammy had said to her anyway, gently stroking her hair as Lou had wept from the pain of Debbie’s hatred. And Lou had tried to believe it.

She tucks a strand of Debbie’s hair behind her ear and then continues to slowly stroke her thumb back and forth across Debbie’s cheek. “Debbie…please. Talk to me. I’m not going to judge you. I love you, exactly the way you are, and I want you to love yourself too. I want you to love yourself enough not to lie to yourself anymore.”  

The tears begin to stream more steadily at Lou’s words, and Lou sees her breath starting to hitch again. She brings her other hand up to cup the side of Debbie’s ribs, as if to hold her lungs together.

“I… I don’t understand…” Debbie’s voice is tiny, barely there. Just strands of air twisted slightly to float the words from her mouth to Lou’s ears. “I…it’s different, what I feel. And I don’t understand it.” She swallows. Lou waits.

 “It scares me.”

Lou lets a long, slow breathe whistle through her teeth, letting the air she didn’t realise she was holding escape from her lungs. “You don’t need to be afraid Debbie. You’re _allowed_ to be afraid, for as long as you need, but please know you don’t have to be. We’re here, we’ll always be here, Tammy and I, waiting to catch when you decide to jump. We won’t let you fall, I promise.”

Debbie smiles weakly, as the tears continue to soak Lou’s thumb. “I’m still not sure if… I mean I know how I feel about men. And I know that’s not how I feel about women….not exactly. It’s different. I didn’t realise how I felt was… something?” Lou nods, and she feels the back of her throat closing over again. She feels pressure behind her eyes begin to build and she bites her lip in an attempt to prevent herself from falling apart. Lou knows she needs to be strong for Debbie in this moment. To listen to her words and accept them for what they are.

 “I don’t know when I realised. Or how I realised.” Debbie continues, “But I guess, subconsciously, I thought it would be easier to just… not. If I like men, then why do I need to complicate things by…”

Lou flinches, she can’t help herself, and she knows Debbie sees.

“No Lou, that’s not what I meant. You’re not… this isn’t about you. It’s about me and my fucked up head. I thought I could bury all that stuff because I didn’t understand it and it was easier to ignore it than to try. But I can’t ignore you Lou. That’s the problem.”

Debbie’s body is shaking again now, and Lou wants to envelop her in her arms again too, but she doesn’t want to disrupt Debbie’s words.

“I didn’t want to admit it to myself. Even in those long, lonely months when you were gone, I kept telling myself it was my best friend I missed, my partner in crime. But slowly the other thoughts began to creep in and I didn’t know what to do with them. I missed your smell, the way it used to linger around our apartment. I missed the way it felt when you wrapped your arm around my waist. I missed the taste of you, even though I didn’t know what that was. Can you miss something you’ve never tried?”

Lou’s eyes are glued to Debbie’s and she thinks she’s forgotten how to breathe. Her lungs are screaming at her.

“One night I was at a bar, drunk, and I went home with a woman and after we fucked in her kitchen, I went into the bathroom and threw up. I tried to tell myself it was from the alcohol, or because I was right - I wasn’t into women, but really deep down I knew. It was because she wasn’t you. I hated myself for it not because she was a woman, but because she wasn’t you.”

Lou can feel her heart splintering, but she doesn’t know why. Everything Debbie is telling her, it’s too much for her to process.

“I’m sorry Lou. I’m so sorry.”

Lou knows she’s heard everything she needs to. And she thinks Debbie has said it all too. But she needs some space and some time because all of Debbie’s words have jammed themselves into her brain and there’s too many of them and they’re pressing against her skull, against the back of her eyes. The pain is pounding through her.

“It’s okay Debbie. It’s okay, I forgive you.”

Gently, Lou moves her hand down Debbie’s face to cup her chin in her hand. She draws Debbie towards her and ever so softly, places her lips over Debbie’s. Debbie responds eagerly but Lou pulls away.

“I’m sorry Debbie, I just… I need some time. Everything you said - I’m feeling a little overwhelmed.” She strokes Debbie’s hair. “But I’m so proud of you baby. You’re doing the right thing, letting it out. You can’t hide from yourself forever. And you can’t hide from me either.”

She pulls Debbie into another embrace before grasping her shoulders and squeezing them firmly. “I need to leave you now Deb, for me, for my head. But I’ll be back. I promise.”

Hastily, before her body can change her mind, Lou ghosts another kiss onto Debbie’s lips and then slips from the room. As she enters the hallway she lets go, finally allowing the tears to pour freely down her cheeks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay, I know that was a lot. But I think it was necessary. 
> 
> thank you so much to everyone who is reading and commenting. I know this fic is stretching on, and I'm so grateful to all of you for sticking with me. I hope you enjoyed this chapter, please leave your comments and let me know what you think - I love hearing from you. Also don't forget to come and say hi on tumblr @oceansgate <3


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so I was supposed to post this chapter earlier today because it's my birthday and I wanted to give you guys an update as a little birthday gift, but then I forgot to do it before I went out. Now I'm back and it's technically not my birthday anymore, but where some people are it still is, so it still counts right? Anyway, I hope you enjoy

Lou stares at her reflection and purses her lips. Her hands grip at the edge of the sink and she presses into the cool surface, attempting to draw some of its unwavering strength through her fingertips and into her stomach. 

When Debbie had knocked at her door earlier and asked if she wanted to go to dinner tonight, Lou had been joking when she shot back “oh honey, are you asking me on a date?”. And she hadn’t been prepared for the shock of fear which pulsed through her veins when Debbie had looked up at her through a tangle of eyelashes and replied “Yes Lou Miller, I am. Please, would you do me the honour of going on a date with me tonight?”

And now as Lou stands in her bathroom putting the finishing touches to her makeup, she tries to quell the storm of butterflies swirling in her stomach, pushing up against the bottom of her lungs. It’s ridiculous, Lou knows that. Debbie has been her best friend for as long as she’s had a best friend. They’d been for dinner together more times than she could count. So why were her organs so intent on hurling themselves around her body, sending jitters crawling across her skin?

A soft knock from her room pulls Lou out of her thoughts, and she makes her way slowly over to the door, one hand rising to smooth down the soft material covering her lower abdomen. She gently strokes the fabric, attempting to calm the storm raging beneath it. As she nears the door, Lou wonders what Debbie will be wearing. Lou herself had agonised over her outfit choice, unsure about Debbie’s expectations for the vibe of the evening. She still wasn’t sure how much of a _date_ this date was, or how far past _just friends_ they had progressed to. Lou had outfits specifically tailored to seduce women, and she toyed with wearing one, but she wasn’t at all sure whether seducing Debbie was even her aim this evening. _Seducing_ implied something temporary, something surface level, and whatever it was she was finally creating with Debbie, she had no intention of it being either of those things.

In the end, Lou had opted for her favourite suit – a stunning green velvet three piece that clung to her body in all the right places and set off her creamy complexion perfectly. To be fair, the suit had seduced many women in its time, but also Debbie had seen her in it on nearly all those occasions, so Lou felt like it was a safe choice.

Lou’s hand hovers over the door handle and she takes one final breath to steady her nerves before swinging the door open to reveal Debbie standing behind it. If Lou had been unsure as to the vibe of the evening, it was clear to her now. A long black dress drapes itself over Debbie’s body but Lou’s eyes have no interest in the fabric or the way it tumbles from her shoulders. They are drawn straight to places which are absent of material; the spot between Debbie’s breasts, the plunging neckline of the dress falling far below it, the left side of her hip, skin revealed by the slit which runs all the way up the side of her leg. Lou’s breath hitches as Debbie steps forward and she sees all the muscles in her leg ripple, and she wants nothing more than to kneel before her and place her mouth over Debbie’s hipbone, to trace those muscles with her tongue and lick the taste from her glowing skin.

Lou sees Debbie’s eyes sweep up and down her, and suddenly she feels self conscious in her old, familiar suit. But she sees a flush rise in Debbie’s cheeks, and hears the strain of desire in her voice.

“You look incredible Lou.” The words dance across the back of Lou’s neck and she feels her skin reacting to their touch.

“I’m sorry, I mean, this is nothing special – you’ve seen me in it a thousand times before,” Lou replies, her voice stumbling over itself as it leaps at Debbie.

Debbie reaches out to catch Lou’s hand, bringing it up to meet her lips. “And you looked incredible every single time.”

Suddenly every cell in Lou’s body is pulsing with fire and she wants nothing more than to pull Debbie into her room, to press every inch of her skin into Debbie’s, to feel Debbie’s lips whispering secrets into her pores. She wants to taste Debbie, she wants to taste herself on Debbie, she wants to taste Debbie’s name whimpering on her lips… but Debbie is pulling her by the hand, leading her down the hallway and she has no choice but to follow.

 

“I spoke to Tammy this morning,” Debbie says, just as two steaming bowls of ramen are placed in front of them. 

“Don’t you speak to Tammy every morning?” Lou replies, twirling noodles around her chopsticks. She watches Debbie roll her eyes and her mind throws up an image of Debbie in Lou’s bed, eyes rolling for a very different reason. She bites her lip and tries to concentrate on the words slipping from Debbie’s lips.

“I mean I spoke to her about you. And about us.”

Lou tries to act nonchalant but really she can feel her ribs tightening around her lungs. “Oh?”

“I know... well she said... she told me how you were uhh, pretty upset yesterday after we talked.”

Lou raises an eyebrow. So Tammy had ratted her out. 

After retreating from Debbie’s room yesterday, Lou had gone into Tammy’s, tears still slipping over her cheeks. Lou had said nothing, merely shook her head, and Tammy had pulled her onto the bed, cradling her head in her lap. She’d fallen asleep with Tammy gently stroking her hair, one hand resting lightly on her jaw. When she’d awoken, Lou had filled Tammy in on her conversation with Debbie, had tried to explain why her head was throbbing and her heart felt like it was catching on her ribs every time she inhaled but she wasn’t sure Tammy understood. How could she, if Lou barely understood it herself.

Lou looks into Debbie’s eyes, says nothing, just waits for her to continue.

“I’m sorry if, I don’t know, I’m sorry if I said something which upset you.” Lou sees Debbie’s eyes swell with tears and she reaches a hand across the table to catch Debbie’s. She slots their fingers together.

“No,” she says. “You didn’t. I’m just still struggling to comprehend how all of this works. How to make this work. How to love you when it’s not just in my head. And I still feel... I don’t know, about Tammy...” Lou trails off, unsure what she’s trying to say.

“You’re not sure if you want me or her?” Debbie asks, not meeting Lou’s eye.

“No!” Lou squeezes Debbie’s hand. She wants to be closer, she wishes this damn table, the bowls of ramen, weren’t sitting between them. She wants all of Debbie and she’s not sure how much longer she can wait. “No Debbie. I want you. I always have and I always will.” She laughs, and her voice deepens slightly. “I want you right now and it’s killing me that I’m sat here tasting miso and garlic and not you.” 

Lou sees the heat crawling up Debbie’s body as she speaks. She watches as Debbie swallows and blinks slowly. “So... Tammy?”

“I don’t know.” Lou sighs. “I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know.” 

Lou can tell Debbie is waiting for her to say something else. The pause prickles up the back of her neck, crawls along her jaw and down her throat. She swallows, trying to push it down, searching for the right words.

“I still need time to figure this all out. But I don’t want time. I want you, right now.” 

Lou knows she’s not making any sense, but the thoughts hurling themselves around her head don’t make sense either. The fire spreading from the skin of her hand on Debbie’s makes sense though, seeping into her veins and pulsing in her abdomen. 

“I can work with that.” Debbie says, her eyes dripping down Lou’s face.

When the waiter asks if they would like another bottle of wine, Debbie sends him away, saying she wants to remember every second of this night. And when they finally pay the check and tumble out of the restaurant, they barely cross the threshold before Lou’s lips are on Debbie’s, her tongue running over her lips, inside her mouth, tasting and tasting and tasting.

“Take me to bed....” Lou breathes down Debbie’s throat, and Debbie moans and Lou  _feels_  it shuddering through her heart, and she grasps at Debbie’s hair and she presses herself closer and then they’re back at the hotel, falling through Debbie’s door and Lou’s ready, she’s so ready.

“You’re sure?” Debbie asks.

“I’m sure Deb.” Lou’s feels her voice tremble. “Please, take me to bed.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, I've had some incredible comments on the past couple of chapters, and I want you to know I read and treasure every single one of them, so thank you so much to everyone who comments! 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this chapter, please leave me your thoughts, I love hearing from you all! honestly, reading your comments makes my day. As always, don't forget to come and visit me on tumblr @oceansgate <3
> 
> EDIT oh and just so you know the carol reference was 100% deliberate haha


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter took me so long to write, mainly I think because I was feeling the pressure to make it absolutely perfect. In the end I managed to persuade myself that perfection wasn't necessary otherwise I think I would have never got it done. I hope you enjoy it anyway...

Their kisses outside the restaurant had been frantic and desperate, Lou pressing into Debbie and Debbie pushing back just as hard. The walk back had been filled with interruptions, Lou unable to keep her hands or lips off Debbie, her skin needing dissolve into Debbie’s, to connect with every inch of her. Everything inside Lou had been straining against her edges, desperately pressing to be inside Debbie instead. Crashing out of the elevator and down the hallway, Lou’s hands had been everywhere, digging her nails into the small of Debbie’s back, gripping into the soft flesh of her upper thigh, plunging her fingers deep into soft curls of hair which tumbled down over Debbie’s shoulders… never staying at one point longer than a breath because she wanted to be everywhere all at once, she wanted to touch every single inch of Debbie and never let go.

But now, as Debbie pulls her over towards the bed, Lou wants to take time in both hands and stretch it between them, pulling and pulling and pulling until every second lasts a day and every minute lasts a year. She wants to bathe in each kiss Debbie ghosts onto her skin, to lie in each one until her skin prunes and begins to shiver from the cold. She wants to wind time around fingers so she can fall into Debbie’s eyes and live her whole life inside her soul, and then clamber back out and still not have missed a single second of Debbie’s hands trailing across her jaw and down her neck.

But despite Lou’s best efforts, Debbie’s kisses only increase in tempo and Lou’s body reacts with a similar urgency. As Debbie’s lips slip down her body, Lou curls her fingers through her hair as she tries to clamp down on the words leaping around in the back of her throat.

“Debbie…” she manages, hoarsely.

Instantly, Debbie’s lips pull away from the spot of exposed skin between the bottom of her vest and the waistband of her pants. Lou sees her eyes flood with concern.

“Are you okay baby? Tell me what you want..?”

The sound of Debbie’s voice, flushed with desire, burns through Lou’s skin and straight to the place where she wants Debbie the most, and it takes every ounce of control in her body not to tighten her grip on Debbie’s hair and press her lips back towards that place. She bites her lip.

“It’s just… can we slow down?”

The words push Debbie up and away from her and Lou leaps forward to grab her hand, pulling her close again.

“Only because… I want this moment to last forever. I’ve waited so long for this, I’ve wanted you like this for so long and I want to take it all in.”

Debbie nods, and Lou sees the understanding in her eyes.

“Lou, anything you want, I will give you. Anything.” Debbie says. Her voice is low and it dances down Lou’s spine, sparking fires between each vertebra with every step.

Lou catches Debbie’s face between her hands and guides it back up towards her, holding Debbie’s lips inches from hers. “I want to know all of you Debbie,” she breathes, letting the words climb straight from her lips onto to Debbie’s.

“I want to memorise the taste of your mouth” she whispers, pulling Debbie’s face ever so slightly closer to hers, watching the desire pool in her eyes. “I want to imprint the texture of your skin into my finger tips,” she tightens her grip on Debbie’s face, preventing her from moving any closer in, preventing their lips from meeting. “I want to listen to the sound of you coming undone and write the score into my brain so I can replay the symphony of your pleasure over and over again.”

A strangled moan leaps from Debbie’s throat and Lou brings a thumb down to softly trail along her lower lip. Debbie’s tongue darts out and as it makes contact with Lou’s skin, she feels the fire erupt in her stomach and her thumb presses down hard against Debbie and her fingers dig down into the side of her face. She stares intently at her, diving deep into Debbie’s eyes and swimming in the desire, letting it float her body up and up and up.

Brushing her thumb outwards towards Debbie’s jaw, Lou finally pulls her in, letting their lips connect. Ever so slowly, she runs the tip of her tongue across Debbie’s lip, savouring the feel of her soft skin against the roughness of her taste buds, salivating at the flavour, drinking it all in. As she moves her mouth on Debbie’s, Lou lets the words drip off her tongue and straight down Debbie’s throat; “I want to see you Debbie. All of you…”

Debbie’s moan reverberates through her whole body, filling Lou’s lungs until they press urgently against her ribcage, yearning to break through the bones, tear through her skin and crash straight into Debbie. Gently she pulls away, and begins to slip one hand over Debbie’s shoulder to clasp her fingers around the zip of her dress. Debbie turns and Lou guides the zip down, exposing the rolling acres of skin stretched taut across the muscles of her back.

As Debbie begins to slip out of the rest of her dress, Lou steps forward to bring her lips onto the nape Debbie’s neck. She trails kisses down Debbie’s spine, pausing her journey to suck on each vertebra, attempting to draw Debbie’s soul from the solidity of each bone, pulling it through the skin and into her mouth. Lou wants to swallow every part of Debbie so she will never be without her again, so the essence of her will sit in Lou’s lungs forever, so every time she takes a breath the exhalation will send a piece of Debbie pulsing through her bloodstream.

Suddenly Lou’s lips meet with the lace of Debbie’s underwear, and her teeth graze across her lower back as she takes the fabric between them, pulling it down over Debbie’s hips. Debbie bends forward to assist with their removal and a gasp shudders from Lou’s lungs as the landscape of her body curves out in front of her. As Debbie straightens up, Lou rises too, their hands slipping together as Lou pulls her around so they are facing each other again.

The sight of Debbie’s body, fully exposed in front of her, sends Lou’s nervous system into overdrive, her skin leaping away from the fascia beneath it desperate to drape itself over every inch of Debbie’s body.

“God, you’re so beautiful,” she croaks. “So fucking beautiful…”

Debbie brings her hands up to catch Lou’s waist. “I want to see you too, Lou. I want to see your beauty too.”

And suddenly every inch of the fabric touching Lou’s body burns against her skin and she wants to tear it away and fling it across the room. She wants no more barriers between them, just the honesty of her body wrapped in her skin, decorated only by the desire prickling across it. Her hands fumble at the buttons of her waistcoat and she curses herself for wearing such a convoluted outfit, penning her in, keeping her from Debbie.

“Here, let me help you,” Debbie says as she steps forwards, fingers swiftly unhooking the button of her pants.

Between the two of them, they make quick work of discarding Lou’s clothes and soon Lou finds herself gazing into Debbie’s eyes as they caress her body, sweeping from her toes to the tip of her head.

“Lou Miller, you are magnificent.” The words envelop Lou and it takes everything in her not to collapse into Debbie’s arms.

And then Lou gives in and she collapses and their bodies find the bed and her mouth finds Debbie’s and then it finds Debbie’s shoulder and her collarbone and the curve of her breast, and it finds Debbie’s nipple and the soft flesh at the top of her ribs, and it nibbles and licks and sucks, tasting and tasting and tasting. Her fingers trace over Debbie’s hips, clutching at the curves of her pelvis before slipping down and down and down, pressing into Debbie, stroking her, teasing her, discovering the way her hips buck and her lungs tremble and her eyes roll as Lou pulls the pleasure from her in wave after wave after wave.

And Debbie’s moans caress Lou’s body and her thigh slips in between Lou’s legs and every tremble of Debbie’s skin against hers sends pulses of ecstasy screaming through her veins and out of her mouth, until the air is swirling with the sound of their pleasure, melting together as Lou’s body melts into Debbie’s. And then Lou’s finger curls into Debbie just right and she feels Debbie’s insides clamp around her and she wants to stay trapped like this forever and then the sound of her name hurtling from Debbie’s lips and the pressure of her thigh into Lou’s centre sends Lou plummeting over the edge too and suddenly her fingers in Debbie are the only things anchoring her to this earth, preventing her from being flung into space.

Lou’s lungs are screaming and her heart is shaking and her body lies quivering in the sheets. She feels Debbie’s hands cup her face, drawing their lips together again. Debbie’s kiss, slow and deep, pulls Lou back down to her, bringing her consciousness back into her tremoring human form. She feels Debbie’s thumb pass across her cheek. Debbie hums softly.

“Baby girl,” she breathes, the air stroking Lou’s neck, “why are you crying?”

Debbie’s words wrap around Lou, enveloping her in a soft blanket of safety. She brings her own hand up to the place where Debbie’s thumb had traced, surprised to meet the wet warmth of the tears spilling over her cheeks. She blinks.

“Because… I’m happy,” Lou says, voice still shaky. She takes a deep breath, filling her lungs with the scent of Debbie.

 “And, because I love you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whewwwww I know this was the chapter you've all been waiting for, and I hope it lived up to your expectations. I wanted to make it more beautiful and tender than super hot and smutty (although I hope it is hot too...) because I wanted it to be a real moment in their relationship.
> 
> please please please leave me your comments/thoughts/opinions (I'm feeling a little insecure about this chapter but I think it's because I hyped it up in my brain too much). I really love hearing from you, and your comments really inspire me! Thank you for sticking with me on this journey, I promise you there is lots more to come... and don't forget to come and say hi over on tumblr @oceansgate - I love connecting with readers over there <3


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